Training - Week 11

It seems like I have been training forever. I don’t feel this way because I am always out working. I feel this way because I am always feeling guilty that I am not out putting sneaker to road. I have to say that I have been an almost complete failure in sticking with my training schedule. I blame scheduling. I have not been able to find a time that I can consistenly go out. First thing in the morning seemed to work for a while, but I just love my sleep too much! It always seems to hot right when I get home from work and then I am usually busy doing something else by the time to cools off in the evening.

So this week was a lot like all other weeks. I was able to find things to do that were much more important than training. But then Saturday came – and this Saturday was test day. I was supposed to try and do 13 miles and see if I would die. I knew I didn’t want to try and do all 13 on my trail, because it is only 3ish miles long, and I would get bored going back and forth all day. So I scanned the internet trying to find a longer trail, where I could just go out and back – and I thought I had found it.

We filled the car up with water and Matt came with me. He had already proved his ability to do 13, so he was only going to do 8 and then relax and read. We drive out to the trail I had so brilliantly selected and realize that it isn’t paved, and it isn’t hard dirt, it is big rocks. But I don’t care, I am ready, I am all psyched up and ready to go, so I go. I go slow. I couldn’t get up to pace with my feet twisting and turning in the rocks. But I go – I am going to do this! I get out about a mile when the biting flies appear. And they are everywhere! I realize there is no chance I am going to want to do this for the 3 hours it is going to take me, so I bail. I walk back to the car, defeated.

Matt wouldn’t let me give up and drives me to our trail. I try it again. This time I am able to keep pace and am doing really well, for the first 10 miles. Then my legs just give out on me. What surprises me is that it isn’t my knees that get all mad, it is my ankles! So, at just short of 11 miles I give up. My cardio was doing OK, but my legs were killing me. I am hoping that it is just because I spent the 2 miles on the rocks earlier and as long as I don’t do that before the real race I will be OK. I decided I could give myself 13 miles, since I did do 2 before, but there was quite a break between those 2 and the other 11. We will see how it goes.