Redemption run gives hope for Dirty Sock

The Garmin doesn't lie

Today's run (street): 3.25 miles

With the Dirty Sock trail race happening on Sunday, I had one more run to go before I finished my taper. Yesterday's run was disappointing and Tuesday's was similarly mediocre. I've recently committed to pushing harder on training runs and that paid off last week with a few decent runs. When I say decent, I mean closer to last year's average pace. Certainly not as fast as the paces I used to hit while training for a race.

The Dirty Sock is a tough course. The terrain isn't especially bad for trails, but the steamy weather conditions and muddy paths make the last miles difficult. My time expectation for this race is about 59 minutes, which is five minutes slower than my 10K PR. I'm usually happy to run it in under an hour. Actually, the way I've been running, I'm concerned about breaking 62 minutes.

Hope came this morning with a run that redeemed my spirit. The difference today was that I kept a steady focus on speed. It wasn't an impressive pace for many readers of this blog, but it was almost a minute per mile faster than what I "achieved" yesterday. I'm not going into Sunday's race with a string of fast runs under my belt, but at least I ended training on a good note.

Business exhaustion + run exhaustion = redemption

Wheel of redemption

Today's run (treadmill): 3.1 miles

I thought that leaving my job might profoundly change my life. Actually, it has, but not exactly in the way that I expected. I'd imagined myself taking leisurely runs on the trail each morning, followed by a variety of activities that I've put off for years. Despite those expectations, my running schedule hasn't really changed. Highly anticipated activities, like returning to playing my classical guitar, have been put on hold. I may not be getting up at 3:30 AM anymore, but I'm working harder than ever.

Much of my attention has been diverted to a consulting practice that I recently started. Creating a business requires many steps, ranging from setting up legal and business resources, to selling services to clients. So far it's been energizing, but all the meetings, calls and proposals can wear you out. That became evident this morning when some work I was doing distracted me past my scheduled run time. After forcing myself to stop, I realized staring at web code for hours had given me a pounding headache. Instead of a run I felt like I needed a nap.

We were up late last night, but I'd found it impossible to sleep past 6:00 AM. I'd planned to go to Stillwell for a trail run. Soon enough, I started self-negotiating to shorter distances on local roads. The wind was blowing hard outside, further eroding my motivation to do my run. I started thinking about forgoing my workout altogether.

In the meantime, my wife who was similarly tired from our late night, had completed her workout and taken a shower. She said it made her feel better, although she felt her run was harder than usual. Inspired by her, I made my way to the guestroom to face the treadmill. I made no pretense that I'd make it a speedy run. This workout was far more about maintaining commitment than improving fitness and conditioning.

I started by running a pace that was 15% slower than usual, and stuck with it until the display showed one mile. From there, I began to increase the treadmill speed every couple of minutes. By the time I'd reached two miles, it was feeling like five. The experience of watching the readout slowly tick toward three miles was torturous, especially since I'd increased my speed to a relatively brisk pace by then.

Considering the short duration, I haven't had many runs that felt as hard. I was thrilled to kick down the speed after 3.1 miles for cool-down. Although I was wiped out, I was also energized, and my headache was gone. This workout felt like redemption and I was very pleased that I didn't skip my workout. On the downside, I realized that I'd failed to transfer my Fitbit to my running shorts so I didn't capture all those steps and distance. I may have lost all that data but I gained back some self esteem.