Wednesday, August 3, 2011

SheLoves Half Marathon: Week 4 - The Worst Yet.

I think week four was the worst, in a general sense. Two of the seven days were terrible runs, but the bright side is I totally learned a lesson. Apparently it was an important one, because I made the same mistake twice. I think God might have been telling me something here?

On day four, which was a short run, I only ran 3.7km in a half hour. Not a bad distance, mind you, but I felt like crap at the end. On my way back home I was extremely thirsty, and when I got home my head was pounding and I felt dizzy. Oh and my knee was killing me. "Lesson learned!", I wrote in my journal...ha!

Fast forward to Saturday, which was my long run day. My goal was 7km. In the morning Finn and I went to the mall, I got a Slurpee, then we went to the park and played. Later on that evening Chris and I were going on a dinner and a movie date, so I was pretty excited for the day ahead. It was a great day - everyone was in a good mood, there was warm sun, and it being Saturday just made the day even better. One o'clock rolled around and it was time for my run. MISTAKE! Do you know how warm it was outside? About 25 degrees, cloudless sky...just pure sun. The section of the park I jogged in had little shade at that time. I hardly drank any water and I nicely polished off that Slurpee about an hour previous. What was I thinking? After 25 minutes I couldn't go on. I had to pee, I wanted to crap my pants, my stomach was hurting, it was hot and I was sweating a tonne...need I go on? I stopped running and sat on a park bench in the shade to catch my breath. I started to cry. Basically, every good feeling I had from last week's 6km success was completely deflated.

I walked home, dragged myself through the door, climbed (quite literally) up the stairs and sat down across from Chris. I broke down. Tears. Sniffles. Ugly cry face. Shrill voice as I try to explain why I'm blubbering like a baby. I cried to him about what a failure that was, and I began to doubt my ability to do this. How am I going to run 21 kilometres if I can't run 7? How am I going to do this? Chris assured me that it was just a bad run, that I shouldn't have ran in the heat of the day (concept!) and I definitely should not have had that Slurpee. I should have ate better and drank more water. He was right, and THIS time I learned the lesson: what I put in myself will directly and faithfully affect the way I function. Honestly I am glad I learned it the hard way, because now I know and I take more care of what I eat and how much water I drink, especially on long run days. I don't ever want to feel like that again, if I can help it...

Thank God for new days and new weeks. Whew!

Want to know info on how to sponsor me in this run and cause? Click here!

4 comments:

  1. Great lesson! Thanks for sharing. Needed to hear that one for sure on my meltdown day :)

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  2. I actually read an article that said slurpees were good before a hot run. Ha! Glad I didn't test that theory. My week stunk and I'll blog about it later. Thanks Brandi Lee.

    Daniela

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  3. Ps I think you are doing great!

    Daniela

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  4. B,
    I love your updates and how genuine you are. Confession of my own: I have no clue how I will ever be ready for the 21K either. Seriously. I am sure there are lots of us who are in the same boat, but right now what we can do is show up and train. And you are kicking butt and learning important lessons along the way :)
    Love ya girl.

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