A Week of Self Doubt
After completing an 18 mile training run last week I was on a running high. Things were going incredibly well and I was really pleased with how the training was going. Each run was building my confidence and I felt excited about the forthcoming races. In a flick of a switch though every day life can interfere and ruin any running ability. The first few days of the week were relatively stressful, lacking in sleep and full of social engagements. It meant that my planned run to work on Wednesday morning didn’t quite go to plan.
The first mile of my run was a disaster. I could hardly keep going. My brain just kept saying "why are you doing this to yourself"? I was far too tired and had limited energy to be up so early trying to fit in a training run. People often say ‘any run is better than no run’ but I am not sure that is always right. I often find my running improves if I give myself a break. If I had known it was going to feel this bad I would definitely have stayed in bed! Seeing as I had already left the house though I decided to re-check the brain and plod on regardless, even if it ended up being my slowest run ever.
One foot after the other I plodded forward on Caudwell Hall Road until I suddenly realised that I had forgotten to start my watch! Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh – a criminal offence of running! This was a disaster as my route is perfectly five miles to work and now my STRAVA wouldn't log that extra distance. Pressing go on the watch quickly I started to log my route again. The dilemma now was how far had I run without the watch on and how far would I need to tag on the end of my route to get to five miles.
To my surprise STRAVA seemed to think my run still went well. I am trending faster – which might just explain why I was finding it harder. I realised a long time ago that running never seems to get easier as although we get better at it we push ourselves more so it gets harder again. I guess without doing this there would be no challenge to it at all!
After struggling so much on Wednesday I knew I needed to get my head back in order before our weekly coffee run. We were running to meet the new Barrister. Since Kate had left for Valencia we hadn’t ventured down to the coffee van. This was intended to let the new Barrister settle in before bombarding him with a big group of sweaty runners all demanding coffee.
When Friday morning came the whole week had caught up with me. Everything felt slightly wrong. Even when I was lacing up my trainers to leave the house I was in two minds whether I should message and cancel. With a big dose of rule 5 I left the house and took a slow trundle up towards Ransomes Road. It often helps if I get a little warm up jog in before meeting the coffee run crew. It didn’t feel great, but upon meeting David and Claire I realised I would be in good company today. Nobody was really feeling it and they reassured me that it would all be fine.
They were right to a degree and the first half of the run went relatively well. The pace of the group was stable as we rounded valley road towards the hill, but then I started to really struggle. Overtiredness from the week definitely set in and I could hardly keep up. I normally love to chatter away on such runs, but I was silent. I couldn’t even keep a small bit of chatter going.
After apologising to Caroline for my silent running this morning I decided I needed to take a breather – re-check myself and then would plod along and catch up the others. Claire waited back with me and soon encouraged me to move forward. This lasted for about thirty seconds before I got myself in a massive tiz. I could hardly breath as I started to freak out about everything.
Gulp - then suddenly I was hyper-ventiliating and over heating. It was really scary and I had to really concentrate on calming down to recover my breath. Stripping off a couple of layers helped cool me down. I am sure this amused a lot of car drivers on valley road I started to feel a bit better. We decided to take a slow trundle down the hill. The last two miles were savage. Every part of my body hurt - those muscles had certainly been deprived of oxygen and I hadn't had stitch in a long while.
Although everyone was really lovely and looked after me – it really did knock my confidence. I know it is mainly through over tiredness and the next run would be ok, but after two bad runs I was starting to doubt my own ability or how I was going to survive three weekends worth of racing. Maybe I had set myself up for a big fall? I was also now dreading my Saturday morning long training run. I had no idea how it was going to go and certainly didn’t want a third bad run for the week. I also didn’t want to let Claire down as she needed to have a good run towards her marathon training.
By the time 10.30am came round on Saturday morning I was filled with fear! I had tried to get a good night sleep and had eaten some porridge with fruit for breakfast. The nerves were crazy though.
The first two miles were ok, but I was struggling to relax. It felt that it was going to be a long run if I was on edge the whole way round. Needless to say the nerves and fear resulted in my stomach cramps returning. Luckily they appeared at a crossing and after some re-hydration and a thirty second breather I managed to recover. Previously when this has happened I have then gone on to run several miles without any problems so we continued on our route.
Claire was fantastic during our run and kept my spirits up. She knows just as well as me that I can run this distance, but also that our brains can get the better of us.
We went out without a plan - this way we were under no pressure. We ended up doing a big loop of Ipswich – heading out via Landseer Road, along the waterfront towards the station, across the big white bridge and towards the River Gipping footpath out towards Sproughton. From here we ran back across to Bramford road and up to Valley Road hill. This took us into our final three miles to Colchester Road and home. It was a great route and the best news is that I survived. It was far from easy, but several things did help me on my way:
1. Meeting fellow runners on route to lift our spirits.
2. Mixing some trail running in with the road running.
3.The ability to stop and take some artistic photos on the way.
It may not have been the best run, but with a little help from my running buddy I know I can slowly plod round my 20 mile race and I will get there eventuality as long as I keep moving. Feel very lucky to have so many people to run with as without my running buddies finding my running mojo and believing in my own ability would be so much harder.