Trying to Get Back Into the Groove

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post showcasing my son’s 10k.  It really warmed my heart to see all the positive responses!  I made sure he saw them all, and although he downplayed it, like any 10-year-old boy would do, I could tell it made him feel good. 🙂

The good news is that he is already planning his next races.  Yes, I said “races” plural! I mentioned to him that the race we did was part of a “10k Trilogy” that had two more races later this year (one in June, one in October), and he was very enthusiastic about doing them both!  I know he’s already thinking about beating his last time, ha ha. 😉  In addition to those, he said he wants to do the Mother’s Day run with me this year (the one that was my first actual “running” race last year), and he’s also making plans to do a 5k with one of his hockey teammates, which I think is really cool. 🙂

Speaking of hockey, now that the video is over, I have a bit of a break before I have to complete the second one (for DS#2’s team).  His season ended last weekend, but our party isn’t until the end of next month due to the manager and coach being a bit busy (they’re getting married, ha ha!).  So now I can finally take a break and focus on me.  Unfortunately, with all the work I’ve been doing (both at home and at my job, where we hired two new people in a week, both of whom I’ve been trying to train while still doing my own work!), I managed to run myself down and catch a cold. 🙁

Boy, do I hate headcolds.  They run you down enough to make you feel rotten, but not enough that you’re going to stop your life and forego all your responsibilities to recover from them.  That’s pretty much where I am right now…I desperately wanted to take a day off of work and hockey tryouts to lay around eating chicken noodle soup (and watching my newly-created hockey video over and over again ;)), but that wasn’t really an option, so instead I braved through it all and now I’m just exhausted.

I probably didn’t help myself much on Sunday, when I first started getting the cold.  First, I got up at 5am to run 6.2 miles in the freezing cold with my kid.  As if that wasn’t enough exertion, when it was over, I was feeling a bit discouraged, because although it was great to run 6.2 miles, my son’s pace is quite a bit slower than what I was used to, and I felt like I hadn’t challenged myself enough to keep on track with my half-marathon training.  So, stupid girl that I am, I decided to go run another five miles, since that meant I wouldn’t have to get up early Monday morning to run it.  And of course, I couldn’t just do it slow and easy…no, I had to go run it at “race pace.”

Not bad for a girl who had run 6.2 miles a few hours earlier!  It was quite windy and cold there on the water, too. Even my Garmin software said so!

Even more impressive than my overall pace, I think, was the fact that I actually had negative splits!

I can’t remember the last time I ran faster at the end of a run than in the beginning!  I was pretty proud of myself, and when I was done, I took a couple of pictures.

It was a beautifully sunny day, if freezing cold. 😉

By Tuesday I was feeling pretty rough, but I still managed to do three miles on the treadmill when I got home from work.  I actually told myself, “It’s only three miles.” Ha! Never thought I’d say that!

As enthusiastic as I was early in the week, by Thursday, I was done. I finally realized that I needed to skip a run to help me recuperate, so I totally blew off my five-miler for Thursday. I felt awful doing it, but at the same time, I knew I wasn’t about to wake up at 4:45am to run when my head was so stuffed up and my throat hurt so much.  We had a hockey tryout for DS#1 Thursday night, so there was no time for running even if I had the energy. 🙁

Now here it is, Friday night, and I have to decide if I’m going to run nine miles in the morning.  .  I already skipped my planned 8-miler two weeks ago because of the all-nighter I pulled for the hockey video.  Last week was the 10k, and now this week I’m back to increasing mileage, thus, nine miles on the schedule.

Ughhhhhhhhh I tell you what, I honestly think that training for a half-marathon is harder than actually running it.  Because the half-marathon only requires one morning of your life…but the training requires hours and hours of time that you have to somehow carve out of the few hours you have left after working, commuting, parenting, and hockey mom-ing!

Back when I first started this training program, I worried about these last few weeks, and how I would find the time to actually do the runs.  Turns out I was right!  If I make it through these last three weeks, I’m pretty sure that will be more of an accomplishment than running the 13.1 miles on April 13.  Because right now I just want to go to bed and sleep for days…

I’ll let you know if I end up running the nine miles.  Wish me luck, because the way I feel right now, I need it!

Thanks for reading (and listening to me whine…)