Some days it’s so easy
My daughter drew me a cool picture of me running. I asked what I was saying and she made the heavy breathing sound. Classic.
So some days you go out for a run and it is effortless. You glide like a gazelle and barely break into a sweat, yet you are running at a good pace and it just isn’t affecting you. Then there are the days that you just can’t seem to get into it. You are running but it appears as if you are bolted to the pavement with a couple of bricks. In reality you probably benefit more from these kind of days than the effortless ones. As a runner you have to learn to overcome the obstacles.
Beginners always have these type of problems and it is why it is so important to make running a habit. I think it usually takes 3 weeks to get your body adjusted to running.
Beginners (from my experience) run into these issues
- Run too fast in the beginning (if you’ve been away from running or never run before you need to take it slowly). This can cause so many issues like shin splints that you then become discouraged and give up.
- Run too long in the beginning (starting off with a run/walk program is great but make sure you stick to it). There is a reason why it has gradual progression. You are easing your body into the whole running thing and trying to establish a habit
- We all think we can run faster than we can in the beginning. Yes, you probably can sprint for a mile or two the first day but what happens the next ? Soreness, pain and other issues.
Ok, my point is that we all learn from our mistakes and those days that you feel like crap, run like crap and look like crap are actually in my opinion the best days. How many consecutive bad days do you have ? Unless you are injured it is unusual to have consecutive bad days. If you have one of those days just sit down and chalk it up as experience. I like to go through the miles and see where I “lost” it.
I had a really good race on Sunday then took my usual Monday off and then ran Tue/Wed. Last week I ran good (not often but good). This week I ran 6.1 on Tue and 5.1 on Wed. Now, my calves are killing me so I think that is why I had two such days. I ran and it hurt. I look back at it and realize that I probably ran too fast on both days. I look back at my stats and both runs started out with quick 3 miles and then really slowing down after that. That tells me something that I have always knows : DON’T GO OUT TOO FAST. DOH.
So even though I felt like crap they were good runs. Decent times, good mileage.
So, if you have one of those days. Chalk it up as experience. For me it is easy to fix my next run. Go either a shorter distance or go slower. Then maybe I won’t feel so bad after the run.
