Challenge Week #2

Back in August -- back when 5 miles was my long run for the week but it was really freaking hot -- I instituted a policy that during challenging weeks, I would acknowledge them as such and take the challenges in stride.  Sure, things might not go as planned.  But it was important to have faith that things would turn out okay.  With that concept in mind, I am hereby declaring this week Challenge Week #2 since three out of this week's four runs have not been fun.  Unlike Challenge Week #1, which was primarily about scheduling runs around meetings, this time around, the challenges are being posed in different ways:

1. The weather.  Tuesday and Thursday were too hot and humid and ick.  Luckily, here we are on Saturday and the weather has cooled to a reasonable degree.  It still got up to 85F today.  But the humidity was much lower (~50%) and the dew point manageable (around 60F) when I went for my run around 6pm.  Side note: As I ran, I was thinking to myself that probably if I ever move from Florida and have to go running in such conditions, I will probably post something as my Facebook status that says, 'How did I ever do this on a regular basis?!??!!!!?!?'
2. My stomach.  Today my stomach was not happy running.  Not one bit.  For about the first mile or so, my stomach hurt on the right side.  Then there was around half a mile that was fine, after which the pain moved to my left side.  Another break, then there was a kind of dull pain that was lower and across my stomach.  By this point, I was around three-quarters of the way through.  Today's run was also 5 miles with three aerobic intervals, so that was just awesome all around.  It did help me keep them at a reasonable pace, though.

I came super close to quitting today, or only running half and adding the remaining miles tomorrow, or adding the sprints tomorrow, or something.  Unfortunately, I couldn't go this morning because I was volunteering for something and had to be there early.  I think that the real problem with my stomach was that I ate too soon before running, but generally this is not a huge problem (and I did leave an hour and a half in between).  Oh well.  It's done now.

One thing that pushed me through was remembering what was probably my absolute worst race to date.  I had food poisoning and still ran (it was a 5k).  Adding insult to injury was the fact that I lived in Worcester, MA -- city of seven hills -- and had to walk over a very big hill (some might say killah) to get to the run.  Which was dumb.  Because you don't want to have to walk over a very big hill to get to a run.  Naturally, I also had to walk back afterward, at which point it started raining.  Once I got home, I went straight to bed, having given up on that day completely.  But what I do remember is somehow finding my way through that run and the fact that I didn't die trying.  One of my exercise rules is that while you might think you are going to die at times, you probably won't.  It's nice to know that however miserable that day (and it was miserable), I can still take something from the experience.

Challenge Week

This morning was 'way gross.  No particular reason why.  It just was.  I looked at the Accuweather report from this morning (yay for weather websites that let you go back and see earlier conditions) and it was about normal, as far as gross conditions go: 80F, humidity of 87%, dew point of 76F, and a heat index of 100.  By the way, there is a generally acknowledged running guideline that any run you do when the humidity + temperature = 160F+ will be disgusting, which is pretty much the case from April to October here.  But today the icky conditions felt even more ick than normal.  It was a very sloggy four miles.  One of the only respites that I had was around mile 3.3ish, when I ran past a bunch of foliage that jutted out slightly into the sidewalk.  It rained last night and the water that had collected felt somewhat cool.  Seriously.  That was this highlight of this morning's run: slightly-not-hot rainwater.  Ugh.

Funny: last Sunday, I chose a route that went by a house that belongs to a friend (well, two friends actually that are married).  As I did, my friend was stepping out to get the papers, which is a somewhat weird coincidence.  Today, I took the same route and saw her at the corner, in her car, leaving for work.  Bizarre!  Her name is Stephanie, and I am hereby dubbing these 'Random Stephanie Encounters' (RSE).  Now that I've identified them, they will probably never happen again. 

I went closer to 8am than 9am today because I was supposed to go to a meeting at 11am for work.  Last night, I had an important realization: this is a challenging week.  Why?  Because it does not quite fit my normal routine.  I am very fortunate that I have an excellent job in the 'allowing me to train for long-distance running events' category.  While there are times when I need to be at the office at an appointed hour, for the most part, I can set my own schedule.  Actually, I chose my marathon plan based on the fact that I can train on my work-from-home days, so that I don't have to feel too much pressure about having everything wrapped up so that I can be at my desk at 9am.  And yes, I do recognize how sweet this is.  The flip side is that I do work seven days a week, which is less fun.

However, this week is a weird week.  We have meetings at unusual times.  We are having meetings almost every day.  We are having a lot of meetings, totaling, by my count, 9.5 hours -- generally I would estimate that I have more like ~2-3 hours a week (yes, I do need to be at the actual office more often than this, but we're just talking meetings here).  I'm getting stressed out about scheduling the running since it doesn't fit the normal plan.

And I realized last night that this is okay, even if I can't find a routine for this week.  There will be challenging weeks since I also have times that I need to travel.  But I'm hoping that by identifying them as challenging weeks, I will feel better about them.  By investing in this concept, I hope that it will make them less stressful.

Icky morning runs are not helping, though.

[Actually, I did not make the 11am meeting because there was a power outage and I couldn't open by automatic garage door.  This literally happened as I was preparing to go and the garage door opened 1/3rd of the way, then stopped.  If it were really an emergency, I could have opened it manually, but if  you want to come over to my stuffy garage in Florida heat/humidity to open it manually, go on right ahead.  I decided to take a pass.]