I had a failed track workout yesterday. I’d had a couple solid weeks, but perhaps ramped up my mileage a little quickly. My legs were sore going into it, and I’d already taken a day off because of quad pain (that started after I pushed the double stroller up a crazy steep hill walking home from somewhere).
Whatever the reason, this workout wasn’t going well. I was supposed to do 4 x 800 meter repeats at sub 9 minute miles, which is my 5k goal pace.
I ran 8:58 pace for 3.1 miles for the Needham 5k, so it shouldn’t be a stretch to maintain that for half a mile repeats with 90 second rest intervals in between… right? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even come close. My entire body felt like mud. I would pick it up, look at my watch, and discover I was doing close to 9:40 pace… something I should be able to do for 3 miles pushing 70 pounds of preschooler & stroller.
Should be able to.
Hah – that’s part of the problem. Running doesn’t work like reading or math… once you’ve hit a milestone, you can’t always just go forward, you have to maintain, too. I may need to accept that I’m simply not in the shape I was in the fall or early winter, and adjust my expectations so that my training is challenging but doable.
I decided to just run at a hard effort for my repeats, but even that was too much, and my right quad and left calf muscles started to complain.
It wasn’t worth risking further strain or potential injury. I headed home.
Keeping it in perspective:
Not every day is going to go well. I still got outside, did over half an hour of cardio, and pushed myself to a challenging level for that period of time. Every time you’re sweating and exerting yourself to a challenging degree, you’re doing something healthy and you’re making progress.
Was it the numerical progress I wanted to see in terms of mileage, number of repeats, and speed of repeats? No. But I made it home uninjured, I exerted effort, and I will try again soon.
It’s times like this that I’m grateful not to be a professional athlete, and I try to remember that my original goal when I began running was to exercise regularly for the health benefits and mood boost. I did that yesterday, so that was a success. Maybe the failed workout added 15 seconds to my race time for the 5k in a month. Maybe pushing myself harder would have prevented me from being able to run next week and cost me 2 minutes on that race time in a month. There’s no way of knowing.
What I do know is that I got out there, I did my best, I quit at a point I felt was prudent, and I still sweat out some stress and got some fresh air.
Aren’t us leisure runners lucky that a failed workout can be that positive?
I think so.
Happy running!
This is good. =) Yesterday felt like a fail to me, but how can it be a fail being outside on a beautiful sunny day with my sister, running almost 11 miles. =) perspective is everything.
It definitely helps! When I’m actually running, I sometimes think of times when I’ve been disappointed with my training efforts and it helps me push through. But feeling discouraged after the workout usually leads me to feeling demoralized and unhappy… much better to feel like I did what I could at the time, and am excited to try again! Sounds like a great bonding experience to do long runs with your sister, that’s amazing 🙂 Enjoy your training and good luck!
You were smart Kelly. I ran long on Saturday and my muscles were super sore yet nothing was injured. Then… I ran on Sunday with the sore muscles and I tweaked my achilles (which is hopefully well on its way to healing already). In any case, it is wise to NOT push running with sore muscles. Elliptical or bike is a good option!
Ugh – that stinks and I’m sorry to hear it 🙁 Glad you anticipate a quick recovery. It’s always so hard to tell whether running is a good idea or not. I used to baby things too much and they’d get weaker because I wasn’t working them, and now I am trying to find balance between that tendency and the desire to go out and run!
We’ve got a wildfire out here and I have a 5-mile run planned tomorrow. Kelly, what are your thoughts for running when the air is smoky? I’m guessing it’s not a good idea, but my next HM is May 3.