Thursday, April 11, 2013

Epic failure, amazing accomplishment. Also, moo.

The Failure
So last week I went public with my training goals, and almost immediately failed to meet them. Awesome, huh?

In my defense, I was feeling sick. Run down, congested and just plain crappy. I ended up taking last week off, more or less. Here's what I had planned:

  • Monday: Run 5 miles, swim 500 meters
  • Tuesday: Spin class, weights
  • Wednesday: Run 5 miles, swim 600 meters
  • Thursday: Bike, swim 500 meters
  • Friday: Rest
  • Saturday: Swim 800 meters, lift weights, run, bike
  • Sunday: Run 8K in Shamrock Shuffle

And here's how it actually shaped up:

  • Monday: Rest
  • Tuesday: Rest
  • Wednesday: Rest
  • Thursday: Run 2 miles, swim 500 meters
  • Friday: Rest
  • Saturday: Swim 850 meters, lift weights
  • Sunday: Run 8K in Shamrock Shuffle

Not an abysmal showing, but still not what I'd had in mind. But that's okay, because every day is a new opportunity! I honestly think the above schedule is just asking way too much of myself, so I'm going to scale back on the swimming and biking to concentrate on the run for the next four weeks (working toward the Great Western Half Marathon on May 5). After that, we'll shift focus to the trifecta of swim/bike/run.

The Accomplishment
My illness and leg fatigue from last week has been well documented. So when it came time to prepare for the Shamrock Shuffle 8K on Sunday, I pretty much didn't. I ate nachos and drank a margarita the night before, thinking there was a pretty solid chance I wasn't going to do the race, anyway, and if I did, I'd be walking most of it. Gone was my wish of a new PR, and my desire to enjoy this great race, which unofficially opens the Chicago racing season.

Sunday morning dawned gray and chilly, and Linda, Shelly, Meg and I made our way to the lakefront. I woke up feeling pretty crappy - sore and sick - but I thought I'd at least start the race and just walk most of it. We went to our start corrals and waited for the race to begin, and the sun came out. It was going to be a glorious day in the city! Soon, Corral G got the go-ahead to start running, and we were off.

And I felt great!

I'm not sure how it happened, but I ended up having a great run. I didn't get my PR, but I thought I might; that's how great I felt! I did my run 4 walk 1 intervals, and I finished less than one minute longer than it took me last year at 1:07:17. (By way of comparison, last year I came in at 1:06:21.)

I still have a long way to go, training-wise, and I'm hoping to keep up this same pace for the Great Western Half Marathon. I know it's a lot to ask of my body to run 13.1 miles as fast as I run 4.97; I get it. So I will put in the time and hope for the best. The worst thing that will happen is public humiliation.

It won't be the first time.

The Moo
So I got on the scale yesterday morning.

Four times.

The rankings, as I like to call them, came in at 210.2, 211, 209.4 and 208.6. I am accepting an average of all four numbers as my weight: 209.8. Or, we can just suck it up and call it what it is: 210.

Oh, hell.

So that's basically a giant volcano of nachos, a margarita and a massive post-race breakfast, all taking up residence in my ass.

I get it, scale. It's time to get serious. Time to hit the training like a real athlete and cut the crap.

Stay tuned to see how that goes.

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