The No Good Horrible and Most Awful Workout of All Time!
Flashback: It’s about 11pm and I have 18 miles in the morning with Bailey. We are in the hardest portion of our training cycle, we have been running high mileage for 6-8 weeks straight. Every Saturday and Sunday we ran back-to-back long runs before the sun woke up. We are drinking enough Red Powerade to be a sponsored athlete, took more 3-hour naps than a two year old and tortured ourselves by taking more freezing cold ice baths than any human should ever endure. Every weekend is a grind and it is the middle of summer and the humidity is through the roof. I could wring my tank top out with sweat after about 10 minutes every single run. It is Friday night and I am putting all of my Nuun and Salt caps in a plastic bag for my 4:45 wake up call so we can beat at least some of the heat. I call Bailey and we are both just dreading it. I literally got tears in my eyes while we were talking. I was so tired, and my body just wanted to sleep. I knew it was going to be so tough. We were starting to feel broken down and mentally exhausted. It is inevitable to hit this low during some point of your training. It sounds goofy to cry about something you choose for yourself, I know. Sometimes, that is just how it makes you feel. I tell you all of this, because I know that even if you haven’t ever trained for an endurance race, you have dreaded a workout.
Oh you know what I am talking about. When you dread a workout for pretty much a whole week before you even do it. I am going to be real with all of you. I don’t look forward to every run. Sometimes I am just really tired, or I feel really cute in my outfit and I don’t want to mess it all up by the copious amounts of sweating that will happen to me during said run. I think sometimes I forget that I just talk about the highlights of my training, or talk about the great runs I have had, I rarely talk about the emotions I have before a run. Which again, probably sounds weird that I get nervous before a long run or before a really hard session. I never talk about how Bailey and I usually just make groaning noises for the first 10 steps of every run because our bodies haven’t warmed up yet and everything hurts. I also don’t talk about the times where we are both racing to the porta-potty because we have done something terribly wrong with our mid-run fuel and we both feel like we are going to crap ourselves (feel free to laugh at our pain after you read that, we do). Or how about when we are both just run down from working a ton of overtime; or staying up until midnight trying to finish a paper. Then what about the times where you have had your heart broken, and all you want to do is watch Gossip Girl and eat donuts in your bed. Or how about when I am sick and wake up in the middle of the night and cry for hours because of the pain I am in. Does any of that feel familiar? I am going to assume the answer is yes. You would think that some of these things would make me never want to run again. You are probably reflecting on my previous blogs and thinking that I am a total liar. I always write about runs like they are happy and easy as pie. The funny thing is, the bad runs were all runs that have helped me grow (I know this sounds cliché). I learn more about myself during a bad run than I do during a good run. I re-learn how tough I am. It is a good reminder of why I love to run, and it isn’t for the perfect runs (although those are pretty spectacular), it is for the runs that I have to pull everything out of me in order to finish. No one likes someone who pretends like it’s easy. Everything worth having is hard. I live by those words. The people in life who will be remembered are the ones who battle day in and day out. They are willing to destroy themselves in order to come out stronger. The people I admire in this world are the ones who just have this relentless pursuit to follow their dreams and to reach their goals. I read about phenomenal people every day who are changing the world and doing incredible things and have pushed through tremendous struggle, and that is what empowers me. There is no can’t, there is only a forward motion towards what I am passionate about. The struggle makes me appreciate everything so much more. Because I earned every single blister, scar, headache, grade, and life lesson that I have.
What I am trying to tell you and motivate you to do is every single time you don’t want to do a workout, do two. Every time you don’t feel like running, run the extra mile. Those are the days that will turn into your best workouts and they will turn you into a stronger person.
Favorite word of all time: Relentless.
With Love and many miles,
-B
P.S. I hope you don't let anything in your life deter you from your goals.
P.S.S I think this blog makes me seem "Intense" haha That is how Kel always describes me...that just made me laugh. I guess sometimes I am a little intense. Hence this blog, and talking like I am an actual gladiator. Blaine, you need to simmer down.