Truth time

When I started this blog I said it would be about the good and bad of marathon training. Mostly, it's been good. I haven't had major problems getting my runs in. I've had some ups and downs but my pace had been consistently improving. Even with surgery I got back to training fairly quickly.

Today I'm being really honest -- I'm spent. Tapped out. I've got nothing. I started feeling depressed on Monday but I thought it was just fatigue. I think it's a little more than that though.

I planned to do 8 miles tonight after work. I got home, fed the dogs, changed, and drove to where I park my car to do the lake route. I got out of the car, looked at the sun and realized I wouldn't make it back to my car before it set, looked at all the tangles in my headphones, and said screw it. I got back in my car, got something to eat, and drove home. I had nothing in me to get that run done and I didn't even care.

Yesterday I emailed a friend who has done a bunch of marathons. I told her I was at the point of training where it just plain sucks and how drained I was. She knew exactly where I was, which made me feel a little better. I guess it's no surprise I feel so empty. In the last 3 weeks I've had surgery, lost my uncle, and my husband started teaching again so he's gone most of the week. That's a lot, I suppose. Add marathon training to that and you end up with the mess I currently am. I'm overwhelmed. I'm tired. And I'm depressed.

I know I'll pull myself out of this. I've come way too far not to. It's not that I don't think running the marathon itself won't be hard but the 18 weeks leading up to it seem like they're so much harder. The marathon is one day. As my friend said, training is a weight you carry around with you week after week. I'm hitting the hardest part of training now so it shouldn't be a surprise to me that I'm hating it at the moment.

I set my alarm tomorrow for 5:30. I HATE getting up early. I'm going to hate doing it to run 8 miles before work. But I've backed myself into a nice corner, if I don't get it in tomorrow morning it's not going to get done. It wouldn't be the worst thing that happened as long as I get the 16 in on Saturday but I feel like this is where I need to gut it out and do what doesn't come naturally. If I still feel so completely exhausted and defeated tomorrow, I will force out 5 miles and move on. I knew these sorta long runs would be an issue once they got up there in miles. With the sun setting earlier, a factor I completely forgot to take into account, they are going to be even more challenging. I need to plan better next week. I don't know exactly how to plan better for the weekday long runs but I need to figure something out.

I still don't know where I'm going to do my 16 on Saturday. I'm sick to death of the Airline Trail but it may my best option. I'll do 4 miles in one direction, head back, then do 4 in the other and finish. It will be mind-numbingly boring but at least it will take some of the stress away by not having to follow a route that I don't know very well like last week. Getting lost on foot is not anything I want to do and I had to always worry about where I was going which made the 15-miler that much harder. Part of the thing I like about long runs is just letting my brain go blank and I couldn't do that last week. Maybe the trail would be a good thing to return to for a week.

So that's where I'm at. I'm miserable. I'm hoping for an amazing night's sleep and a new start tomorrow.