Training Day 19 - Depleted

Mondays have seemed cursed when it comes to running at night.  The late hour, coming off of a busy weekend & an even busier day all catch up with me by Monday night and I have had to cut off my runs twice now for fear of passing out.  So when I decided to run at 10:00pm this Monday, I went downstairs determined to finish the workout in its entirety.  I couldn't skip Monday.  I already had Sunday off and I need to get in as many runs as I can for the week.  Skipping was just a bad idea.  So I got it in my head that I wouldn't give up no matter how hard my 25 minutes got.

And it got HARD!

I should back up a second and explain why my Mondays, and in particular THIS Monday, was so hard.  The girl has swimming lessons on Mondays in the afternoon.  An hour away from where we live.  And for the first 3 weeks, we would go to our friend's house for lunch and play in her pool for a few hours before the swimming lesson.  So I have to pack up 2 kids, their lunches, swimming clothes and gear, changes of clothes, etc. (basically an armada of crap) and schlepp it to and from my car.  Enter the swimming lesson, the girl immediately freaks out and we spend half an hour in a pool with her clinging to me and screaming.  Another hour drive home where the boy screams the whole way without a break. 

And about the boy...we are in the process of finding out if he has Celiac Disease or not.  He has been up from about midnight until 5:45 every night for over a week now, screaming and thrashing while I try to soothe him in any way possible.  And since we wake up around 6:30, I'm averaging about an hour and a half of sleep a night on a GOOD night.  Oh, and we cut gluten out of both his and my diets, along with a myriad of other foods that he is allergic to (milk, rice, legumes), so I am extremely carb deprived right now and I'm FEELING it! 

Soooo.....I was drained going into the run and I was determined not to let it get the best of me.  I was going to finish!  I knew it would be hard from the beginning, but when I started to feel my energy depleting and I looked down and had only been running for 2:30, I knew I was going to have to dig deeper.

I found myself bargaining with my end time.  "Just run for 5:00, you can do that".  So I made it to 5:00.  "Well, you made it this far, might as well go for 10:00, right?  Do 10:00 and then call it a night".  So I ran for 10:00.  "Your first big leap was to 20:00, so you have to make it that far.  You did that over a week ago, you can do it again!"  So I ran to 20:00.  And at that point, with 5:00 left, you finish running 25:00.

The key, I am finding, is to simultaneously get lost in the moment and distract yourself from it.  I know it doesn't make any sense, but follow me on this...When you start to feel depleted, you feel your breath catching as though you're about to be short of it, you can see your heartbeat in the edges of your vision, a heat is creeping up on the back of your neck, you're fighting the urge to just sit down right there on the treadmill, and one second on that clock feels like an eternity...you have to surrender to it.  Get lost in your breath, make sure it's deep and not too quick, this will also help keep your heartbeat under control.  Feel that heat on the back of your neck envelop your entire body and go with it - it will turn into the sweat that will cool you off.  Feel what your body is doing with each breath, with each step.  Give in to it, accept it, and let your mind wander to wherever it takes you so you are able to put one foot in front of the other.  And that's where the distract yourself portion comes into play; Don't pay attention to the clock or anything else you're using to keep track of how long/far you've gone.  I will psych myself out every time I see I only have a few minutes left!  I can be doing fine, have enough stamina to run for another 10-20 minutes, but if I see the end time coming up I start to crumble!

So I have to distract myself.  Usually my mind wanders plenty on its own and to quite interesting places.  But in those moments where I draw a blank, where nothing comes organically, I find myself looking for inspiration to keep moving.  This Monday I thought of a friend of a friend who recently ran 50 miles.  FIFTY MILES!!  I kept telling myself, if she can run 50 miles in 10 hours, you can run for 25 minutes!  It got me through those mind-numbing moments of silence where my thoughts ran dry.  So, thank you Kashi, for the inspiration :)

When all was said & done I ran 2.28 miles in 25 minutes!  Slightly faster than last time and I'm hoping it continues to move in that direction, especially if I can find time for a nice morning run :)