Monday, April 28, 2008

Blergh

Yuck.

I have a marathon/half-marathon to run in less than a week (Sunday, to be exact) and I don't have the mental strength to make it through 3 miles anymore. My lack of appetite and inability to sleep when I am exhausted are probably also not helping at this point.

So tonight's crappy workout was 3 terrible miles at the indoor track at the school gym followed by a piddling 15 minutes of the Minna Lessig workout. I can't remember the last time I ran more than once a week, and I also can't remember the last time a run hasn't ended in a feeling of complete defeat accompanied by a generous amount of tears.

A word to the wise: don't sign up to run a second marathon after you have just finished running your first unless you have seen the future and you are sure it is something you must, absolutely must, do. If this is not the case, do yourself a favor and take a break. Otherwise, you risk dealing with what I am dealing with right now, which is to say a complete lack of enjoyment from running (something that you once loved more than life itself) and a profound sense of burnout and failure.

4 comments:

SueWho said...

this too shall pass. Don't worry - it will! Then after it has passed, give yourself a nice break, relax, and look forward to something new and different for awhile that doesn't contain the word marathon. You can do it!

Chris said...

Geez, Emilie. What an awful, depressing post. You make ME want to quit running.

You wrote "marathon/half-marathon". Do you have an option here? If so, do the half. You will do fine.

And us run-bloggers are here to support you! To help you out, I am going to propose that me and my fellow run-bloggers all go out this weekend and run a distance PR. Whether that is 4 miles or 14. We are going to do this in the hopes that we never have to see another terrible post like this one! I am going to type it up right now!

Rachel said...

Your fellow runners are here to cheer you on! Just remember the feeling you had when you ran that first marathon--I'm sure there had to be some enthusiasm there??

Jim said...

OK, it's Wednesday, any better? Be very careful forcing yourself to run when you don't want to. Don't risk the possibility of injury, physically or mentally. You have a miserable experience on Sunday and it's goodbye running. We don't want that to happen. Missing one race is not the end of the world! I agree with Susan, take a break, don't stop, but decrease you mileage and forget about a marathon for awhile. What you're experiencing is not uncommon.