This past week I've been battling something viral. It was in my sinuses and I just felt headachy and yucky all week. I didn't even run. Every night I felt too wiped and every morning there would be my sinus throbbing under my eye. And I wasn't that sick. I wasn't sick enough to stay in bed or really garner any sympathy. I went to my night class, and my volunteer gig, and made buns. Oh, and I kept questioning myself, am I really sick? I even wished I was more sick so I could justify staying in bed. I would say that both physically and mentally, it was not a great week. I felt rotten and pretty much alternated between self-pity and self-loathing the entire week. And that is exactly how the race went.
I felt okay, no sinus headache, definitely much better. I had googled, the night before, how long it takes to lose your conditioning and I concluded that I would be fine. I wasn't fine. I felt low, and about 5 k in, my left hip became furious. I could feel a muscle in my thigh curling into a cramp. This, I'm pretty sure is a result of not running all week. My legs were tight. Things did not get better. At 10k I was trying to remember a mantra about pain, and I was sure that if I could just call it to mind things would be so much better ... I couldn't, and instead I started thinking about how miserable I was. The words this is hell are not an effective running mantra by the way. I couldn't stop thinking about the pain in my hip and how rotten I felt. I knew this was not a good thing to be doing, but I couldn't, and didn't stop. It's actually remarkable that I wasn't crying when I crossed the finish line.
It's disappointing because my training's been going well. I had been really looking forward to this race. I probably shouldn't have run it.
The running mantra I was trying to remember was, Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. I'm not sure it would have helped, but it is a pretty accurate description of the situation.
