Lessons Learned: Just go!

I took a whole week off. In the middle of marathon training, right after doing the same distance long run that did me during marathon training last year, I took a whole week off. I felt sort of tired, but not particularly sore, and I had a little knee pain... so I got lazy and semi-justified taking a whole week off. I didn't set out to take a whole week off, but it just sort of happened. It turns out that was a bad idea. Bad.

I knew I had to force myself out of bed this morning for the Church of Sunday Long Run at Valley Forge Park, so I reluctantly and slowly got up and headed over to the park. Standing around before we ran, I admitted that I hadn't run all week, and it was increasingly apparent that we were going to have a small group today because of the holiday weekend. I also admitted that I would probably end up only running 5 miles instead of 10 because I knew it would be easy to quit after one loop on the Martin Trail at VFP. Terry suggested I follow him over to the Schuylkill River Trail instead to do a loop that was about 9 miles. My watch only measured 8.5, but that's fine with me!

We headed off toward the trail, and Terry and Rick ran a very slow warm up mile over to the trail so that I could keep up with them. Mind you, I had to run my little heart out to keep up, but I did. Ok, I may be exaggerating a bit there, but you get the idea. It is a very good thing they stayed with me to get me to the trail because I likely would have been deterred by all the "road closed," signs and construction equipment! Never mind those! We forged right ahead! Hahaha And we even passed an entire HS girls Cross Country team! Ok, exaggeration again. They were standing around stretching after their warm up, and they promptly left me in their dust once they started running.

It's a good thing that there was beautiful scenery because I hate gravel trails, and I had a really rough time after all those lazy days I took this week. I walked so much today that I'm really not sure that I should even say that I went for a run, but I guess I get what I deserve for being lazy and pigging out all week. It was so hot and humid that I almost considered taking my shirt off while I ran, and the only other time I felt that way was Labor Day weekend last year during my last long run before bailing on marathon training and skipping straight to the marathon! Yikes! I really got a taste of why I should not skip training runs, and I told Terry on one of his MANY paperclips back to find me (thank you!) that I will think of how I felt today every time I think about possibly skipping a training run again during this training season!! I mean, at one point, I thought there was an ambulance up head of us that's how bad this was! It turned out to be a horse trailer, but I wouldn't have minded an ambulance at the time.

When I finally made it back to the parking lot, I told Terry and Rick that my run was miserable, which Terry already knew, but he pointed out that I finished it, and for today that was all that mattered. Now from here on out, I need to keep training and make sure that finishing a short run like today's isn't the goal!! It's ok to have an off-day in the sense of not having a good day, but there are training days and rest days. There is no more room on my calendar for taking-off-days!