It was one of those days.
You know the ones...you start out with a grand goal, set out with the best of intentions to implement the steps it takes to get to that goal...and then you fall spectacularly flat on your face, well short of where you had hoped to be.
In other words:
FAIL.
In the running world, when this happens in a race, it's called a "DNS" or "DNF"--short for, "Did Not Start" or "Did Not Finish". In triathlons, marathons, or ultras, it is akin to the kiss of death.
And yet...
We've all had these days. Even elites such as Dean Karnazes, the ultramarathoner, or Deena Kastor, American marathon Olympian, have gotten a DNF in major races. Deena broke her foot in Beijing in 2008, just near the start of her race, and ended up riding in the "sag wagon" for the entire race. Karno got a DNF in this year's Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run, dropping out at mile 62, well short of the mileage of which we all know he is capable.
And as for me, I got a DNF in my training run yesterday.
I know, it was a training run. Realistically, it is not the same thing at all. However, I have been working very hard the last couple months, trying to build up my endurance and speed after almost a year of not running consistently.
Although I have not updated this blog as much as I should have, I have had several stutter-starts at beginning my training over the past six months. Three months ago, I had the unfortunate experience of having a bug bite get infected with MRSA, the highly dangerous antibiotic-resistant staph infection that is becoming more widespread in this country. Luckily for me, the urgent care doc I saw "had a hunch" and decided to put me on an antibiotic that, it turned out, was the only one capable of killing the particular strain of staph I had, although that didn't make the whole process easy, or fast.
48 days later, I took my last antibiotic, and was finally cleared to start running.
That was two months ago, and so far I've worked myself up to be able to participate in the Bridge-to-Bridge 12K in San Francisco on Sunday, October 4, where I ran 1:33. It was over a 12-minute mile, but it was 7.3 miles of running with only two walk breaks. I was very pleased with my improvement.
That brought me up to yesterday. I'd had two excellent runs earlier in the week--a 4-mile tempo run, and 1.5 miles of intervals bookended with two 2-mile runs. I thought for sure, knowing that my longest training mileage so far as been 11 miles, that I could manage a 13 mile run. My goal: run to my daughter's school and back, twice. With the ugly hills. I set my alarm for 7 a.m., got my stuff all ready to go, and went to bed by 11.
Then I slept in until noon.
Now, knowing that I have a toddler and a 9-year-old, you know that's highly unusual on its own. However, I just could not get up. I was exhausted! When I finally did, I felt horrible. I was dreading the run, which is something I have only ever experienced once, when I was getting ready to run 20 miles for the first time in my life. But even then, once I got going, I was OK.
Not so yesterday. As I left the house, I was still muttering, "I am so dreading this." However, I was determined to get out there. I figured that, as usual, I'd feel better once I got going. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
I ran the first couple miles. And my legs and lungs felt pretty darn good, even up the hills. However, my head felt dizzy and stuffy, like the top half of it was filled with tightly packed sludge. After almost 2 1/2 miles, I had to walk.
I made the first half of the first loop, 3.3 miles, in 43 minutes, walking the last mile or so. Then I turned around and headed back. My head felt so dizzy, I was on the verge of tears, nauseated, and worried I might throw up. I walked almost all the way home, but out of sheer anger I ran up every one of the big hills, dizziness or not. I was NOT going to let the hills beat me too, even if my body/brain were not being very cooperative.
I made it home, and quit. 6.6 miles in 1 hour, 40 minutes.
I was so frustrated and angry. But what can you do?
Dean Karnazes said in his blog, after his spectacular fail at the Western States, "What constitutes a life worth living? Is it high achievement? What I’ve come to believe is that more than anything, it’s having the courage to try."
Reading those words this morning brought me up short. Yes, I failed in my attempt. However, by Dean's reckoning, perhaps yesterday wasn't really so much a fail after all.
No matter what else happened yesterday, I will know that, despite feeling terrible, being tired and dreading the run, I did have the courage to try.
When have you had the courage to try?
________________________________________
Showing posts with label Dean Karnazes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dean Karnazes. Show all posts
Monday, October 19, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
You know you've overdone it when...
...using deodorant hurts.
I mean, it really hurts. As in, your armpits go, "Oh my god, why are you beating me with a stick?!"
Well. I guess we can say that the 55 minutes of strenth training was effective. I haven't felt this sore since I played "let's see how many times Mommy can jump up and down" with baby Karalyn.
She won. That's how pathetic my jumping skills are.
Anyway, my lofty and high-minded goal of heading to the Y for another run workout today had to be sidelined. It's hard to run when you can't move your arms. Or your quads, for that matter.
I suppose it's to be expected. I have been doing little weight-lifting routines the past couple weeks, but I haven't really gone all-out, as my trainer Isaiah in Maine taught me to do. He was very specific about which exercises, which weights, and how many sets and reps (2 sets at 12 reps each) that I needed to do to gain strength.
He was also very specific in telling me that I should never do the same thing two days in a row...and that a day of rest is required to let your body heal and get stronger after an all-out effort.
That's what today has become: rest and repair.
Anyway, thankfully I'm a bit of a Cybex nut in that I remember exactly which machines he taught me to use, in which order, and at which settings, even though he taught me this stuff over a year ago.
But why weightlifting? If I'm running, wouldn't it stand to reason that I wouldn't want to bulk up?
You would think that would be the case, but this is when the beauty of being a women actually gives us an advantage.
Women don't bulk up.
Don't believe it when people say, "Oh, if you lift weights, you'll bulk up like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Barry Bonds." (OK, admittedly, at least one of those guys used steroids...) Women simply do not bulk up that way. We don't have the testosterone that is required, for one. For a more thorough examination as to why women don't bulk up, read this.
So it turns out that lifting weights is an important part of being a runner. I had no idea; Isaiah had told me that weight lifting would help my muscles stay lean, strong and healthy, and that would help me be a good runner, but it wasn't until I visited an orthopedic surgeon in York, Maine that I got a real wakeup call.
I went to see him in the late fall of 2007. I was experiencing knee pain--not when I ran, but when I sat at my 2nd job at William Arthur, putting decorative touches like bows and ribbons on special-ordered greeting cards and announcements. I tended to sit with my ankles crossed, which made my knees kind of splay out...and my left knee would hurt so badly that I couldn't even walk for a few minutes. Oddly, though, running helped it feel better.
The doctor put me through a full range-of-motion test, and after a thorough examination, declared that there was nothing wrong with my knee. But he cautioned me before I left.
"You need to start lifting weights," he said. "Strength training is essential, especially for runners. And," he added, "if you don't do it, I guarantee you, 100%, you will be back to see me with some real knee problems in the future."
Wow. Who knew.
So yesterday, thinking that it was high time I got my strength training going for real, I went to the Y with Karalyn. She's allowed to be in child care for 90 minutes, so rather than walk first, then fit in the strength training, I flipped them. I did the strength training first, although I did do a 5-minute warmup walk first as Isaiah had trained me.
It took about 55 minutes. I can't even begin to tell you all the weights I used, but I exercised pretty much every part of my body except my stomach. I hate crunches, much as I know I should be doing them, especially as a strong core is essential to running.
The strength training is good for more than just proper running form or for a strong, lean physique. It also helps you keep good posture. Think that's not a biggie? Think again. Twice in my life I've had to have Physical Therapy to lengthen the muscles in my chest and shorten them in my back, due to hunching my shoulders forward...granted, it was while breastfeeding, but it's common to end up in that position while on a computer as well. Doing PT exercises and hearing your chest go "crunch" when you straighten up are not fun things!
Anyway, as I noted yesterday, I also spent some time walking and sprinting. Sprints are good for speed training, and they also act like metabolic boosters by ramping up calorie-burning. You burn a lot of calories when you walk, you burn more when you run, but you really torch them when you add high-speed bursts to walking or running.
Not that the goal of an athlete is necessarily calorie-burning; it's training, first and foremost. But sometimes training includes reducing a gut that you let build up (guilty!) due to holidays, stress, or injury. That's when the calorie-burning becomes somewhat more important.
So today I am feeling it. It hurts to be in almost any position. But it's not hideously painful, it's more like a dull ache than a sharp OUCH...except when I used that deodorant this morning.
THAT hurt.
Guess those pullups and dips I did, along with the rowing and delts and all the other stuff really made a difference, huh?
Dean Karnazes says in his book, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of An All-Night Runner, "Pain is the body's way of ridding itself of weakness."
The book also says, "If it comes easy, if it doens't require extraordinary effort, you're not pushing hard enough. It's supposed to hurt like hell." "
OK, Karno. Gotcha.
Apparently, I'm doing something right.
Have fun!
I mean, it really hurts. As in, your armpits go, "Oh my god, why are you beating me with a stick?!"
Well. I guess we can say that the 55 minutes of strenth training was effective. I haven't felt this sore since I played "let's see how many times Mommy can jump up and down" with baby Karalyn.
She won. That's how pathetic my jumping skills are.
Anyway, my lofty and high-minded goal of heading to the Y for another run workout today had to be sidelined. It's hard to run when you can't move your arms. Or your quads, for that matter.
I suppose it's to be expected. I have been doing little weight-lifting routines the past couple weeks, but I haven't really gone all-out, as my trainer Isaiah in Maine taught me to do. He was very specific about which exercises, which weights, and how many sets and reps (2 sets at 12 reps each) that I needed to do to gain strength.
He was also very specific in telling me that I should never do the same thing two days in a row...and that a day of rest is required to let your body heal and get stronger after an all-out effort.
That's what today has become: rest and repair.
Anyway, thankfully I'm a bit of a Cybex nut in that I remember exactly which machines he taught me to use, in which order, and at which settings, even though he taught me this stuff over a year ago.
But why weightlifting? If I'm running, wouldn't it stand to reason that I wouldn't want to bulk up?
You would think that would be the case, but this is when the beauty of being a women actually gives us an advantage.
Women don't bulk up.
Don't believe it when people say, "Oh, if you lift weights, you'll bulk up like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Barry Bonds." (OK, admittedly, at least one of those guys used steroids...) Women simply do not bulk up that way. We don't have the testosterone that is required, for one. For a more thorough examination as to why women don't bulk up, read this.
So it turns out that lifting weights is an important part of being a runner. I had no idea; Isaiah had told me that weight lifting would help my muscles stay lean, strong and healthy, and that would help me be a good runner, but it wasn't until I visited an orthopedic surgeon in York, Maine that I got a real wakeup call.
I went to see him in the late fall of 2007. I was experiencing knee pain--not when I ran, but when I sat at my 2nd job at William Arthur, putting decorative touches like bows and ribbons on special-ordered greeting cards and announcements. I tended to sit with my ankles crossed, which made my knees kind of splay out...and my left knee would hurt so badly that I couldn't even walk for a few minutes. Oddly, though, running helped it feel better.
The doctor put me through a full range-of-motion test, and after a thorough examination, declared that there was nothing wrong with my knee. But he cautioned me before I left.
"You need to start lifting weights," he said. "Strength training is essential, especially for runners. And," he added, "if you don't do it, I guarantee you, 100%, you will be back to see me with some real knee problems in the future."
Wow. Who knew.
So yesterday, thinking that it was high time I got my strength training going for real, I went to the Y with Karalyn. She's allowed to be in child care for 90 minutes, so rather than walk first, then fit in the strength training, I flipped them. I did the strength training first, although I did do a 5-minute warmup walk first as Isaiah had trained me.
It took about 55 minutes. I can't even begin to tell you all the weights I used, but I exercised pretty much every part of my body except my stomach. I hate crunches, much as I know I should be doing them, especially as a strong core is essential to running.
The strength training is good for more than just proper running form or for a strong, lean physique. It also helps you keep good posture. Think that's not a biggie? Think again. Twice in my life I've had to have Physical Therapy to lengthen the muscles in my chest and shorten them in my back, due to hunching my shoulders forward...granted, it was while breastfeeding, but it's common to end up in that position while on a computer as well. Doing PT exercises and hearing your chest go "crunch" when you straighten up are not fun things!
Anyway, as I noted yesterday, I also spent some time walking and sprinting. Sprints are good for speed training, and they also act like metabolic boosters by ramping up calorie-burning. You burn a lot of calories when you walk, you burn more when you run, but you really torch them when you add high-speed bursts to walking or running.
Not that the goal of an athlete is necessarily calorie-burning; it's training, first and foremost. But sometimes training includes reducing a gut that you let build up (guilty!) due to holidays, stress, or injury. That's when the calorie-burning becomes somewhat more important.
So today I am feeling it. It hurts to be in almost any position. But it's not hideously painful, it's more like a dull ache than a sharp OUCH...except when I used that deodorant this morning.
THAT hurt.
Guess those pullups and dips I did, along with the rowing and delts and all the other stuff really made a difference, huh?
Dean Karnazes says in his book, Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of An All-Night Runner, "Pain is the body's way of ridding itself of weakness."
The book also says, "If it comes easy, if it doens't require extraordinary effort, you're not pushing hard enough. It's supposed to hurt like hell." "
OK, Karno. Gotcha.
Apparently, I'm doing something right.
Have fun!
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