Just in case you’re not stalking me and know exactly where I’ve said I’ll be every moment, here’s an excerpt from my 2018 New Year’s Resolutions post:
Half marathon training. My Triumphant Return To Running will be at the end of April in Louisville at the Derby Half Marathon. I’m signed up, the hotel room is reserved and the training program has been printed out (well, not really, but I do have the PDF saved). Official training starts at the beginning of February and I’m totally stoked for this adventure.
This is the weekend of the Derby Half Marathon. I’m writing this while lounging on my couch. And my couch is most certainly NOT in Louisville. What happened?
I had been doing pretty well with training — I had missed only one workout, and had a handful of runs that were shorter than they were supposed to be, but over the course of 10 weeks, that’s a high-fivable achievement for me. When there started to be rumblings from the group about perhaps forgoing the trip, I was a 9-miler and 10-miler away from the race. Oh so close!
And then, yes, we all decided that there were too many things in the way of a good trip and opted to swap it out for a North Carolina adventure in September. I think we traded up, if you ask me.
So there I was, with 90% of the training done, but no race in Louisville to test my mettle. Should I find a local race and continue training? Should I just finish out the training regardless of finding a race? Or should I just stop immediately?
It might seem like there’s a logical answer here, right? Just finish up the training! JUST DOOOOOOO IT as a commercial might yell at me. But I went in the other direction.
See, the running had been wearing me down and the niggling injuries started to progress to nagging injuries, soon to be full-blown injuries. My brain loved the running and the miles, but, frankly, my body wasn’t thrilled with me. While my brain was all “hell YEA!!” my body was all like “um … we need to talk”. At issue was my weight. It’s not a secret that my weight is probably 30 to 40 pounds away from being able to run without my hip wanting to slash the tires on all of my running shoes. And my hip would have had comrades in crime with my feet, knees, lower back and my always-cranky ITB.
All that to say: when we decided to cancel the trip, I made the decision to cancel my half marathon training. It helped that the weekend of my 9-miler, the weather outside was a lovely 34 degrees and sleeting/raining — running outdoors wasn’t going to happen and running 9 miles on the treadmill seemed like a prison sentence. I mean really, 9 miles on a treadmill? Kill me now.
And while I might have been a little disappointed, that was overshadowed by my body being incredibly happy with me. And it thanked me by not aching at night or causing me to groan like an 87-year old when I stood up. Pretty good payback, eh?
The lesson here is that sometimes there’s a lot of wisdom in not doing the “right” thing and completing a goal or a project. Sometimes cutting your losses is the best thing to do — sure, it would have only been another few weeks and I’m positive I would have survived and could have finished the race, but at what cost? Instead, I’ve spent the last few weeks becoming best buds with my bike and Zwift (more on that later). I’m working as hard as ever, but in a way that is more in line with what I need right at this very moment.
And all this means is that I get a summer to get in shape for what will certainly be an epic North Carolina adventure!