Nine days and counting

Hello my friends!

I’m not having the best of evenings today, or to be fair, the best of weeks.

Everything that possibly could go wrong at the moment pretty much has.

I’ve been mad busy at work – not only with massive projects that keep getting delayed (and costing £££), but also because my boss is away this week, both things which are really stressing me out.

I still haven’t been able to catch up with ANYTHING when it comes to my uni work, despite having tried my best… It’s like my brain switches off after 10-11 hours of sitting by the computer and refuses to take in any more information.

I was hoping that at least running would give me some kind of boost or that it would revive me so I could sit down and get some stuff done tonight.

But no, I might have felt like the queen of the world on Sunday / Monday, however it’s pretty safe to say Im not any more.

Because I haven’t been able to keep up with the training plan properly due to injuries and being ill, I really felt like I had to get my 5 miles in tonight, especially since I don’t have that many runs left before Berlin. And after having done 12.5 miles with Candice I really thought I had cracked it, that after Sunday I could actually count myself as a runner and not just a pretend one that I have been feeling like at times.

I didn’t want to go out tonight due to my stomach being bloated, but since running has helped getting rid of the pain in the past, I figured I could easily do 5 miles and come back refreshed & painless. Most people I know seem to be running all sorts of crazy miles with ease and speed, so surely I should be able to do 5 miles with ease even if I don’t have the speed.

Wrong!

I remember the feeling I had when I did my first ever run and came to 1 mile and was so out of breath that I panicked because I didnt think I would be able to get oxygen down me ever again. That was the feeling I had about 6-7 times tonight, plus the pain in my leg and hand from my fall at RDC on Tuesday.

I know people say that you have bad runs, and yes that is true, but surely if one has trained enough and is fit enough, what happened to me tonight should not happen, especially not for a distance like 5 miles?! (that is meant to be my “short run” at this point of my training plan).

With 9 days to go until I have to do 13.1 miles this was not what I wanted or expected to feel.

On Sunday I felt like a runner, tonight I feel like a fake again and it sucks.

And yes it is just as much about the journey as it is about crossing the finish line.

And yes I am probably being too hard on myself, one bad run yeah?

Probably, hopefully (!!), but that doesnt change the way I feel.

I am gutted. I am gutted because I thought I was over this whole phase of feeling shit & disappointed and feeling like I can’t run.

I have spent and sacrificed so much of my time on training / running, time that I could have spent on so many other things, like my MA, my loved ones, my work, my DJing and so on.

And whilst I appreciate and cherish all the amazing things that this journey has given me, I feel like I am back on square one and I don’t even know how I ended up here! It doesn’t make any sense.

I really hope it’s just a bad run and that I can shake off these feelings of doubt and not being good enough – it shouldn’t be hitting me this hard by now!

Actually no – I kind of feel like it shouldn’t be hitting me at all by this point, I should be over it.

Normally being me I would say to try harder, but at this point I really feel like I have given this everything I have plus more.

Maybe I’m just scared. Or maybe it’s just nerves. Or maybe I’m just exhausted.

Or maybe I just need to shut up.

4 thoughts on “Nine days and counting

  1. Cata

    Hey darling. It’s only one bad run you know :) When you cross that finish line in Berlin you’ll forget about all the bad stuff, you’ll feel like you’ve conquered the world and any difficulties you’ve had on your journey there will fade in comparison.

    I’m so proud of you already and I can’t wait to see you back home!

    Lots of love xxx

  2. 00frz

    hey.

    I’m here from mixcloud.. s’funny because I run alot and have recently been up against something similar. I couldn’t figure why even when I ate so well I would get hit by really difficult times with my energy levels.

    Turns out that a build up of ‘bad’ bacteria in the gut stops the nutrients being used by the body, a clasic sign of this is in girls the bloating that you mentioned.

    Normally it happens after a dose of antibiotics but can be a gradual thing too.

    I’ve been recomended to take acidophilus for a week or too, you get it from health food shops and hopefully will get you bouncing along again!

    Hope this might help.. good luck, you can do anything you set your mind to!

    and p.s. thanx for the good tunes :o)

  3. Kirsty Gillmore

    Hey darlin’

    It is just a bad run. They can happen at any time, no matter how hard you’ve trained or how experienced you are. Our bodies are complicated machines and we drive them pretty hard when we’re race training, sometimes we can push through the physical pain and that’s awesome but sometimes our bodies will go “nup, I’m not doin’ that today” and that’s okay.

    When I was training for the London Marathon, back in 2009, I had runs just like yours, when I couldn’t breathe, my legs were deadweights and I couldn’t understand it. I was running 30miles+ a week in training, I was the fittest I had ever been in my life, what was going on? I remember one 6M recovery run that left me breathless and in tears, it hurt so much. I didn’t understand how my body, which could carry me through 15M runs on the weekend, could give way a few days later. But it was kinda because I was pushing it so hard that it did.

    You are fit enough. You are strong enough. All your training has not been in vain and it will keep you strong in body and mind from the Berlin start line to the finish (and through the party!). Like we don’t expect every day at work to be amazing, we can’t expect every run to be amazing. There will be better runs and awesome runs in your future. There will also be rubbish runs, because when you run as much as we do, sometimes our bodies, or our minds, or both, don’t want to come to the party.

    Remember what Charlie said on Tuesday: “don’t worry about pushing it now, you have done enough.” I know it’s really easy to reduce our own running achievements, especially surrounded by people who live & breathe running, but what you have done so far is awesome. Never forget that.

    Let the bad run be just that: a bad run. The next run will be different and Berlin, whatever happens in the race, will be awesome.

    Big love xxx

  4. Donna

    For me personally when I am stressed out it completely messes up with my training. I wouldn’t be too hard on yourself. I would take some time, sleep, and relax in a way that comes naturally to you. You did your long run. You know you can do 13.1 miles. Even if you did no other training between now and Berline your body will remember how to run and your spirit will allow you to cross that finish line.

    Don’t panic. Rest, recover, and refresh your mind and the body will follow.

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