Feeling Discouraged

I know I’ve said this before, but today was truly the worst run of my short run of my short running career.

I mentioned yesterday that I have a cold, but that I also had nine miles on the schedule for today.  I skipped my eight-miler two weeks ago to do the hockey video, and then I skipped my five-miler to rest my body because of this cold.  I woke up today feeling not fantastic, but not so horrible I couldn’t give it a try.  I figured I would run the first half at a decent pace, take a walk break, and then run the last half at a more comfortable pace.

So, I packed up my gear…

(Believe it or not, all those tissues were still not enough!)

…and headed to the Metropark. This would be my first time running from one end of the Metropark to the other and back, so I was kind of excited about it.  I started out in the low 10s, and since I have a heart rate monitor now, I checked it often to try to keep myself from working too hard.  I felt surprisingly good, though, despite my cold.

By the time I got to the 4.5 mark, I was feeling like I needed that break, but I decided to go to 4.75, because that would allow me to walk a quarter mile and then turn around to begin the run back (I had to do a bit of an out and back at the start in the opposite direction to get me to hit 9 miles at the point where I had to park my car).

I did just that, and the break felt good.  I started running again just a touch before the quarter mile mark, and then, I don’t know what happened, but suddenly, my knee was hurting.  I’ve never experienced this before, so I wasn’t sure what to do.  I decided to see if I could just work it out by running a little slower (I’d done this successfully before when my Achilles tendon got injured last year).  It continued to pain me, and eventually I realized I needed to stop, probably only after about half a mile of running.  I came to a full stop and flexed my knee some, then I started again.  Unfortunately, instead of getting better, it got worse. 🙁

For the next mile or so, I tried running very slowly, but it just kept hurting.  I stopped to walk, and the pain lessened, so then after a little bit, I tried running again.  At that point, the pain got so bad that I couldn’t handle it, and I knew I had to walk for a longer period.  By this time, I was crying, not necessarily as much because I was in pain, but because I was so frustrated.  The rest of my body felt fine, but my damn knee was giving out on me!

I realized at this point that there was no way I was going to run the whole 9, so I walked for a while and then set a goal for myself to run super slow when I was ready to try again.  I started running again at 6.5 miles, but that didn’t last more than a tenth of a mile.  For the next 20 minutes, I kept setting goals for myself…run the last two miles. Fail. The last mile and a half. Fail.  The last mile.  Fail.  The last half a mile. Fail.  The last quarter mile. FAIL!!

By this time I was standing on the path just sobbing, feeling sorry for myself and miserable (not to mention in pain).  I gave it one last go, and told myself I could run the last tenth of a mile very slowly.  I did it, but it didn’t feel anything like a victory at that point.  I just got into my car and cried some more, because my “great” run had turned out nothing like I’d planned.

I wished I could have just gone home and rested, but I had a busy day, as usual.  I ended up writing most of this post while sitting in the hockey arena, icing my knee. (Let’s not fail to appreciate that irony.)

It still hurts like hell, and I’m really worried about what will happen the next time I run.  I’m supposed to do five on Monday, three on Tuesday, five on Thursday and then TEN next Saturday.  What’s frustrating is that, despite my headcold, I know I could have finished the nine miles with just the one walk break.  My heart and chest felt fine after the first 4.5 miles.  If only my knee had cooperated, I would be able to tell you all that I ran nine miles for the first time in my life.  But sadly, that isn’t the case today. Instead, I barely made five miles, and I spent most of my evening like this:

Not at all how I’d planned to celebrate my “big accomplishment.” 🙁

Sorry for the whining, but I am really down right now.  This is not my normal persona, so I’m going to try to get out of this funk, but any cheerleading or advice anyone wants to offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading!