Marathonwiner and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad run.

Anyone remember the Alexander books from back in the day? Just passed one on a table at a street sale and it was the perfect title for this post. Here’s why.

I spent all night last night and all of this morning debating on whether or not to do this weekend’s “long run” (it’s a cutback week so Hal only had 10 on the schedule) today or Sunday. After a lot of internal arguing, I finally made the decision to go at it today. Bad, bad decision Katie. And so I bring you, lessons learned from Marathonwiner’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad run:

What NOT to do Leading Up to a Cutback 10-Miler

1. Follow the logic “well if I bang it out now (Friday), rather than Sunday, I’ll have more time to rest up for next week’s very scary 15 miler. This may be good logic IF you hadn’t just run 11.somthing miles on Wednesday.

2. Think “I’ve run plenty of NYRR’s 10k’s and whatnot while slightly hungover. A few glasses of wine prior to a 10 miler can’t reallly hurt.” There’s a difference between 6 miles and 10 miles, Katie. A four mile difference. Don’t be daft.

3. Sleep in for the third day in a row rather than get your butt outta bed and hit the park at 6:30 in the morning. What do all of those successful 13.1’s under your belt have in common? You got up before the sun to tackle them.

4. Think just because it’s September, a 10-miler on the very flat Riverside Park and Hudson River Park paths will be bearable, if not cool. It’s still in the 80’s out there, champ. And it’s hot as balls.

5. Allow a few cups of coffee to count as morning hydration. Sure, coffee is made with water. That does not mean three cups full will give you the juice you need to knock out a long run, cut back or not.  H20 is your friend. Simple rule of thumb for runners.

Ways a Very Bad 10-miler Can Still End Good

1. By being run on a new route. While this contradicts slightly with point 4 above, it was nice to see some new sights and get out of the park for a bit. Next time, I’ll just have to make sure it’s not at noon on a summer day (this supports my belief that just because pumpkin spice lattes are available, it is NOT yet fall).

2. By taking you past some breathtaking scenes. I’m not sure I’m up for battling the traffic that One World Trade Center is going to attract on Sunday. But it was AWESOME being in the area today:

Flags near the 9/11 memorial at Battery Park. Gave me goosebumps.

I approached ground zero just as firefighters were hanging a flag on the wall of a memorial.

3. By finding a man willing to let you pose for pictures with his giant albino pythons, even while you’re covered in sweat (If I could crop that out I would, but I’m in a rush):

Yes, the sweat caused my shirt to stretch to 3 times its original size.

4. By ending said run right where your lawyer-bf-who-you-never-see-even-though-you-live-together works. It was lovely to be able to share a few moments and an iced tea lemonade with the JD in the middle of the workday 🙂

5. By finishing it, even though you had to walk a lot and thought you might hurl over the West Side highway 8420432 times throughout. I’m not sure what amount of the [really 11. something mile] run I actually walked. Towards the end there was a lot of running/walking combos making their way into the mix. But just in case I walked more than a mile (which I’m not sure I did), I even added on another mile in the neighborhood once I got home. If I was going to finish the whole run, then I was going to finish it running, darnit!

Summary

I really learned two very important lessons today. I need to take better care of my body as training progresses. If I want to have some wine, fine. But I need to deal with the guilt I feel the next day when I don’t let myself try another long run. I do plan on x-ing out all alcohol in at least the month prior to race day. Anything before that? I just need to be smarter about it. And I certainly don’t think a few glasses of wine is what made this run suck. All of those first 5 points contributed. I need to just be smarter all around, and hopefully there will be no repeats of today. The other thing I learned though, is that come hell or high water, I will finish all 26.2 miles of that marathon. Even if I feel like a vom machine and need to Gallowalk it all, I will finish. And after a crappy run, that’s a good thing to talk away with.

Now, me and my new pet (don’t get jealous, Santan) have some QT scheduled before I head to Brooklyn for my cousins graduation from grad school!

Mini foam roller, you are too cute! And so affordable.

Finally broke down and got the foam roller. A little slice of heaven now lives in my apartment. Thank you, Jack Rabbit of the UWS. Have a great weekend kids!

– What was your worst ever run?

– Have you tried Stingers chews? I just picked up a pack to bring on the 15-miler next weekend…