Doh

Wow. Tonight was bad.

Our coach originally had 8 miles of hill repeats on the training schedule, but let us off the hook since we ran 22 last Saturday. He changed the plan to do a 5, 6, or 8 mile run around Hyde Park, which isn’t exactly flat but it beats running up and down the same hill for an hour. Sounded like it would be an easy night.

I was running with my usual buddy and we took off way too fast of course (she’s faster than me anyway). But the first three miles of the route were through a new neighborhood and involved about 10 different turns (really), so I wanted to stay with the group. By mile 2 I felt like I was dying. I passed someone with a Garmin who said we were only doing an 8:46, which should be a manageable pace for such a short run. Nope. My legs were completely heavy and the tendons around my knee felt like old rubber bands. Awesome.

I gave up trying to keep pace with my friend (or anyone else) and tried to focus on just finishing. Around mile 3.5 I saw people making the turn for the 5-mile loop and I wanted so badly to follow them but decided to stick it out. By mile 4.5 I was done. My IT band was killing me to the point where I slowed down to a 10 or 11-minute mile pace. Ugh. I totally punked out and decided to just do 6 miles. I felt like a giant loser and felt even worse when the elite runners were passing me in mile 6 – after they had just done 8.

I think I’m going to take a week off from running with the group. Normally I like to push my competitive side, but with the marathon four weeks out, I need a rest from the head games that come from always trying to keep up with the pack.