Running with Pixie Dust

Today's run:

Half Marathon Training Week Six, Day Three (but not really)

4.66 miles/1:02:47

Seriously... this training and I are not meant to be.  I will keep at it, and I will strive to do better this week, but I am grateful that this is my second half marathon and not my first because I am losing mileage left and right.  At first, I thought I was just going to be consistently one mile short on every run, but today I was four miles short.  Um.

The truth is, I don't think I should have gone for this run.  For one thing, it was incredibly icy out today.  Okay, so it's not the end of the world, but I just had this image of myself slipping and falling and breaking something and getting to call my director and ask if she would be okay if Cinderella's glass slipper was a cast.  That's super magical, right?

So I sat around most of the afternoon hemming and hawing and being irritatingly indecisive (this looked a lot like my normal behavior, really) about whether or not to go out on the run.  I finally decided to do it, and was trying to get psyched up when two things happened: I had a tough conversation with David that ended in me bawling, and my Garmin died.  In case you're wondering, this is not a method I would recommend for getting yourself ready for exercise.

Once I finally got out the door, I knew I couldn't do the eight miles that I had planned on because it would be pitch black by the time I was done.  And thus began my sad Sunday run: trying desperately not to fall and break all my limbs on the ice, all while beating myself up over not leaving earlier and not letting go of the painful conversation.  Mostly dead Garmin included.

Of course, when I'm not being Debbie Downer, I know that of course it was not a fail, because I still got out and ran four miles, which is a great way to spend an hour.  I burned 500 calories that I would not have burned if I had stayed on my couch.  I got outside and took in some fresh air.  My life is really not at all hard.

But (you knew the whining was coming)... this run completely sucked.  There was only one point in the entire run that I thought to myself, "This is fun, I'm glad I came out."  It was during my five minute warmup walk, and it was because I was dancing along to the music.  Note that this is before I started running, as it all went downhill from there.  I will not go into a long explanation of why it sucked because really, that's not fun for anyone... but what I learned was that if I leave for a run while I'm sad, it doesn't necessarily mean that I will get happy.  I might just be sad the whole time.  While exercise often improves my mood, being left alone to stew over my emotions and freak out about my future while running does not improve my mood.  Just ask my mom, who was kind enough to pick me up after I called and said, "I cannot face running for a minute longer," and saw me start crying almost the minute I sat down in the car.

I got home, took a boiling hot shower, put on sweatpants, and did my best to forget those four miles.  After all, it was one run.  I know now that it won't make or break my training plan.  Maybe by doing four miles today instead of eight miles, I will lose a tiny bit of my long run endurance, but I did eight miles on Friday and rocked it, so I'm not terribly concerned.  Plus, I still have five more weeks of training to get over today's crappy run, including a 10 miler next weekend and a 12 miler the weekend after that. So will today's run kill me?  Nope... but thank God almighty that it is over.