Freaky Friday

The past few days I have been feeling pretty awful. My work outs were getting worse instead of better and everything just seems harder than normal. Not really the norm for me. I must have peed in a magic water fountain or opened a cursed fortune cookie and switched places with this other person I have been. Obviously these are the only logical explanations. Or maybe I tied my shoes the wrong way...

I was debating on what to do: take time off and give myself some rest or try and push though.

One of the toughest things to do in running is to figure out what pain is OK and what exhaustion level is OK. And where to draw the line. Even if you are being a good little consistent runner, the line is never consistent. One day, you are pushing through a calf cramp and a month later it is a torn hamstring. You fight being tired only to end up tapped out, burnt out. How can you tell what to run through?

Mostly, I think it is an individual choice. Since I believe that our choices help make us who we are, I take most of mine pretty seriously. So, it is hard to approach a choice of running or taking time off- except for SAS, I don't really want to be thought of as weak! But that leaves only one option: run through everything. Force it. Force it to work. Force your way through the hard, the tough, and the ugly. I always believed the right things would happen if I just made the tough choices.

One problem: Force is not the same as Confidence. Forcing your way through a work out means you can only do just that. Use force and get through. Force it till you can make it. Only this isn't a reality TV show and you can't just "fake it till you make it". Force is not fight, nor is it heart. It just is. The force I am talking about is not the drone defeating, Darth Vader slaying, Obi Wan Kenobi force. This is the dark side force. The one that should hardly ever be used. Forcing a work out, forcing that second run, forcing those drills can be the very thing that makes you weaker. Not stronger. The mental edge you could lose is not worth the physical gain.

At least to me, the key is to build those things into your routine. That is where the gain lies- building yourself into something instead of trying to bend yourself around some sort of plan. This past year I have forced a lot of things. Everything from mileage to recovery. I haven't built very much of anything. It is true that I have been trying to work on my weaknesses, but I feel like I have lost touch with my strengths. Example A: I am super at recovering, if I give myself time to do so. Doubling every day has left me more exhausted than anything I have ever done. That includes the SCAC meet where I ran the 1500m, 800m, and 5k all in the span of a few hours and lived. I was less tired then than I am now after some of my simple 40/20s. It is not really the doubling, but the fact that I am not giving myself the correct time to recover. There lies my one of my problems. I am forcing too much work. I wanted to be good really really fast. So just do it all at once, right?

Why would I have to force something I love to do, you ask? Well, simple. 'Tis because I have been fighting myself the whole way. My comfort zone is in middle distance work. Short. Quick. Painful. But over rapidly. My mental edge has always been in trying to stay stronger than my competitor just long enough to finish up the race. Try doing that in any distance over a mile...hard stuff. You have to have something else to keep you going. Confidence. Drive. Heart. And lots of Fire. You also have to have more than 30 miles a week. Switching gears like that has taken me to a whole new level of strength I didn't know I had, but it has called my lazy butt out on all the little things I never took that seriously. I did just enough core to keep my IT Band from flaring up. Just enough arm strengthening to keep me strong down the last stretch. Doesn't really scream FIRE at you does it? I wanted to be fast, I didn't understand everything it would take to get there.

While I may have lost sight of a few of my goals lately, and I have been struggling to keep my motivation up, I am definitely learning a lot. I know the base I have gained over the past year has been great. I know that forcing myself through some of those work outs showed me I can really do well at distances over 1500m! That is a huge step for me! My idea of rhythm during a work out used to be hitting 67's for 4x400 and calling it a night. Now I understand there is this wonderful groove that you can find during a tempo that takes you farther and faster than you think you can go. Taking the splits for those longer distances is addicting. You want to keep edging a little more time off each mile. I have definitely found my heart in some of those work outs and found a love for distances I never thought I would want to meet.

I am also learning a lot by reading what other runners are going through. My favorite runner used to be Shannon Rowbury. While she still has this special place in my mind, I have a few others making their way to the front of my inspiration block. I have been reading Lauren Fleshman's blog and I have to say I am a bit obsessed. Her attitude towards running and life has made me laugh, cry, and hope. She is an incredible runner and if I could end up with a shadow of her life I would be doing pretty well. There are runners everywhere trying to make the most of their legs. Runner's dreams riding on 10 toes, the strength of their bones, and the power and endurance in their muscles. While we are all taking different paths and running different roads, many of us hope to end up on the same track. Most professional runners seem to have had some sort of injury before, so at least I know I am not alone there! I have a long way to go until I even somewhat resemble a professional athlete, but until then, I will just say I am a pro runner trapped in a jogger's body. And smile on. With the help of people like Taylor Penrod at least I can look good while I do it!  

And one final note of good news- after spending a whole summer in Texas believing our apartment was supposed to get really hot over the summer, Derick and I now have a fully functioning air conditioner! I no longer wake up sweating unless I have the terrible "Revenge of the Runner Buns" dream again.