I have been going through a very rough stretch as of late. The exercise routine feels like more of a malaise and I haven't been having much fun. It could be some lingering discontent from my injury in February, when a month of restricted training turned into weight gain and a not-so-unexpected poor performance at the NYC Half. My workouts are inconsistent – I seem to do just enough to check the box, but they are really not doing me much good at all.
I purposefully started a runstreak 10 days ago. It was my way of saying, “I’m going to beat this. Running every day, no matter how little, will eventually kick me into gear.” But it hasn’t. My lunch runs, which earlier in the year consistently clocked in at 4 miles, have been anywhere between 1 mile and 3.5 miles. I never hit 4 miles all last week.
Friday’s 1-mile run was a huge disappointment. My legs – specifically around both left and right Achilles tendons, were sore as hell and I struggled even to make it to one mile.
On Saturday, I set out for what was supposed to be at least 6 miles. After a half-mile I felt lethargic and heavy and made an early turn to cut the route in half. I didn’t feel as though I was moving very well and as soon as my Garmin clocked mile 1, I stopped and walked. I was breathing heavy – and clocked that mile, which was mostly uphill, at 10:10, which is too fast for me to start a run going uphill. I should have paced slower. I ran/walked the rest of the way – two miles in total.
On Sunday, I hung out with my daughter Sam in the morning and hoped to run in the afternoon. It was 75-degrees outside. Perfect for a run, really. But my girlfriend Stefany was in town and we decided to do an early outdoor dinner, so I quickly hopped on the treadmill and ran a fast mile. Check the box, run streak now at 10 days, then time to get a glass of wine and brussel sprout – bacon pizza.
It’s no surprise I have gained roughly 3 pounds while on this runstreak.
This morning was the day to turn it all around. I had an interesting idea. Stefany needed to be on the train back to NY at 5:30. My office (and gym) is pretty close by and I figured I would drop her off and go to the gym before work. We woke up at 4:45, and I dressed to go for an early morning swim, which is something I hadn't done in over a year. The gym at the Marriott is open 24/7 to members so I made a little test for myself. I would swim for 45 minutes in the morning, bike for 45 minutes in the afternoon, and finish after work with a 5-mile run. It was my own mini-triathlon and it sounded like a good plan at the time.
Stefany and I said our good byes at the train station and I was at the gym at 5:35 ready to get in the pool. Only when I got there, I discovered that while the gym part of the gym is open 24/7, the pool doesn’t open until 6am. On a normal day, this little hiccup in the plan shouldn’t have frazzled me as much as it did. I should have waited until 6, did the swim as planned, and gotten to work – even if it was a little later than I might have liked. I thought about doing the run or the bike first, but I didn’t feel like jumping in the pool at lunch. I might have scrapped the swim altogether and done two separate runs – one in the morning and one at lunch – but I only brought one change of clothes to sweat in, and if I sweat in the morning, then I wasn’t going to put those clothes back on to sweat again during my lunch workout.
So I bagged it. I jumped in the shower and got ready for work. I bagged the whole thing. Putting on my work-pants, especially ones that came right out of the dryer, was proof enough that my workout regimen has been suffering of late. The seams, especially in the butt-area, were screaming for relief. My belt taunts me: “Hey, you know us belts don’t like to be pulled this tight. Look at what happened to Pablo Sandoval... You're next!”
I don’t know why it’s such a struggle for me – on and off. I get into some really good streaks, and some really bad streaks. A marathon looms in the future – November 6. I have had trouble running a mere one mile lately. One stinkin’ mile. And while I know a lot of that is mental, it’s starting to really upset me. But at least today I had good intentions... and I think maybe that's a good start.
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