The Full Truth

Yeah. I'm not in good enough shape to be training at the paces for a PR attempt at the 10 miler. That is a HARD sentence to write.

Last week, I was supposed to do a workout of 200s, 400s, and 800s. The suggested paces by Coach (who, doesn't know what kind of shape I'm in, either) were what one would be running to run a sub 1:19 10 miler. I was pretty terrified by those paces and not in a good, challenging way.

 The KoB is like... YAYY!

and I'm all... get me the fuck off this thing.

There are HARD workouts that push you and teach you to be hard and fast and all that fun stuff and then there are HARD workouts that you can't actually do without dying. To be fair, Coach's paces were always "suggestions." But, to go from years of training with her and always being able to hit my paces FASTER than I was supposed, not even being able to hit them at all, has been pretty fucking tragic.

And if I'm totally honest with myself right now... I'm teetering on the edge of a mental funk (running aside). So, to feel like a failure at running, isn't really helping.

 Gotta get up and keep going...

The KoB suggested that we try the 200s at a slightly slower pace and see how they went. We ended up just doing the 200s (8 of them) and came up with a plan to try and make October the month of the turnaround. I'm going to focus on doing tempo runs around 8:30 and probably some track work that mimics that type of fitness level. Until that all starts to feel too easy and then I'll crank it up.

I emailed Coach and of course she was supportive and awesome because she's not only my Coach, but one of my favorite friends and because... well.. that's just how bitches roll. And, let's be honest... I've put her in an unfair situation here because neither of us know what kind of shape I'm in OR how long it will take me to start gaining fitness. When I gave her a deadline of... early November. It's kind of like.. I can't exactly be pussyfooting around in my training.  Plus... we've gone from her having to tell me to NOT run all the miles to now having to nudge and be like... uhhh.. maybe you should try to hit 35 miles this week.

Oh, I can't use eating popcorn on the couch

as cross-training? Fuck.

All this to say... I'm not going to be documenting training for a 10 mile PR. (You probably saw that coming, anyway). Instead, I'm just going to go back to how I used to blog back in the day, when I wasn't really "training" but just running and yes, I'm going to be running tempo miles, because I do WANT to improve and get back to being in shape.

And I apologize to all 7 of you who read this blog. I know it gets old to continue to go from... HEY I'M TRAINING AND AWESOME to JK, OUTTA SHAPE AND HATE RUNNING to OMG, I'M TRAINING AGAIN, etc. Sometimes running isn't just about running and as a thank you for sticking with me, I offer this totes adorbs puppy gif: