I'm wallowing in self pity which may be directly caused by hormones since my left ovary attempted to secede from the union before my run. I'm also having a fat day which for some reason usually makes me want to drown my fat in ice cream. Also a possible symptom of hormones (or being an overworked grad student).
I had a 3 hour midterm last night that I probably didn't fail but probably didn't get an A in either. So today I decided it was a good day to get my life back together...which I have since decided isn't going to happen.
Lately, my old Garmin has been slightly untruthful with me about how fast I've been running. And by slightly I mean a few weeks ago it told me I ran my cool-down mile in a 5:21. Most of the time, the lies have not been that blatant, but I think that was when I finally decided I needed a new Garmin.
Well I got one. And I think it's being fairly honest with me. Which makes me sad. Not only am I not running 5:21's for my cool down miles, I'm also not running 7:21's for my cool-down mile. More like 8:21....which I suppose is actually ok for a cool down mile. After spending a couple hours trying to program my Garmin this morning and get it synced with my computer and/or phone, I finally managed to upload a tough workout to it: 1 mile warm-up, 2 miles at a 7:17 pace, 2 min rest, 2 miles at pace, 2 min rest, 2 more miles at pace, then a 1 mile cool down. A total of 8 miles, with six of them being fast.
I knew this was going to go poorly, but I still held out hope.
The problem with telling a gps unit to keep you within a specified pace (I told it 7:15 to 7:20), is that a gps is only accurate to a certain degree. It cannot really tell you instantaneous pace, only average, which changes every second. Every other second this stupid thing was beeping and vibrating, telling me I'm not on pace, now I'm on pace, too fast, too slow, at pace. Meanwhile, I'm trying my best to ignore it and just keep going. Too fast, too slow, too fast, too slow. I was exhausted. I stopped the watch and took a break for a few seconds, tried again. My asthma started to act up, so I decided I'd finish out the first two mile interval and then switch to just a regular gps run and do the repeats on my own.
When I stopped to take a break, I reset my watch. It proudly told me that I had run my fastest mile (since buying this Garmin) at a 7:01. What the hell?? Why did this stupid thing let me run a 7:01 and what the hell was the second mile? Since my two miles came out to 14:40, I can only guess it was a 7:39. Stupid technology. I was wiped out. I decided to start over, do another mile aiming for 7:17, then turn around and head back.
I pushed as hard as I could without inducing an asthma attack. 7:28. I took a break, then headed back at a slower pace. I was done pushing for the day. The next mile was 8:08, I was 5 miles into my run, 3 miles from home, and I decided I just didn't want to do this anymore.
This has happened only a handful of times in my running career. There are days when my run just really isn't going to happen, and my brain and/or body just call it quits. I respect those times because for one, it doesn't happen very often (maybe once or twice a year) and two, there is most likely a physical reason behind it and one run is not worth risking injury.
However, I have never been 3 miles from home when it has happened. After walking about a mile and a half, I got tired of walking. People were passing me (I mean whatever, but just so you get a visual). I wanted to be home. I was low on water, I was getting hungry, I was totally over it, and if I was out there too long I was going to have to pee and I had already passed the last bathroom. I started up a slow jog again. I made it to about half a mile from home and gladly walked again.
During my walk, I thought about how much slower I was than my old Garmin implied. I thought about hormones, and wheat, and how I was wearing a different pair of running shoes than usual. I also thought about Monday's run, which was actually at a decent pace without pushing myself much.
So maybe it's just a bad day (I hope) and not that I now have a Garmin that is brutally honest with me and telling me I am far too slow to meet my goal pace at my upcoming half marathon and marathon. I feel like I have been completely deceived and I have been living in this fantasy world where I was getting really fast, and now it turns out I'm slow. Today I had this weird thought that maybe I couldn't even run as far as I thought I could because I didn't make it the whole way. But then I realized I have run the same route a hundred times before (and many times much further) and that the path did not magically get miles shorter. Garmin can't change that.
I'll run again on Saturday, a 13 mile run at a 7:49 pace, but maybe I'll ease off of that for the first few miles to see where I'm at.
Years (and years) ago, at a swim meet, my dad told me "You can't get faster every time" after a disappointing swim. Not everyday will be a personal record. Sometimes it can be a little difficult being your own coach, trainer, and sports psychologist.
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