The Wall

I hit the proverbial training wall this past week.  I had never thought about it happening; not that I thought I was invincible, but I just never entertained the notion because I never, well, thought about it.  It happened after three consecutive weeks of impressing myself, logging more than 120 miles.  Two weeks ago I felt that I was slow to recover from a 15-miler.  After my first ever 18-miler last Sunday, I guess it was bound to happen.  Here's the breakdown...yeesh.

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 7.45 miles @ 8:45
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: "Rest"
Friday: 6.78 @ 8:14
Saturday: 6.01 @ 8:41
Sunday: 13.48 @ 8:44
Total: 33.72

Kinda a buzzkill after I thought I was becoming a badass.  Three days of rest?  What a weeny-squeezer.  Thursday's rest is in quotes because I hardly rested that day.  We had conferences after school until 7:30PM and I'm pretty sure I saw a record number of parents.  Plus, I decided the 12+ hour day at work was the right one on which to wear 3.5" pumps.  At least I got to sit on my ass for most of conferences.  Side note: Before running, I had no problem rocking 3.5" pumps to school on a daily basis.  I don't know if it's the swelling or the toe abuse, but I feel I've lost my skill.

Anywho, Friday and Saturday were bust runs for me.  On Friday my goal was 7 miles before leaving for school.  When I left the house, I wasn't feeling 7 miles, so I thought I'd try just 3 for speed.  I conked out after just under a mile at 6:45 pace, scaled it back to 8:20ish, and switched my goal back to 7.  I ran short on time, though, and finished up just under 7.

We went to a wine tasting at the Glass Pavilion on Friday night, which we hadn't done for for a long, long time. It was a lot of fun and now Joe wants to grow a mustache.  Afterwards we went to Jed's where I watched the end of the Ohio win over Beefalo and enjoyed a short Amber Bock.  Didn't expect the hangover I felt Saturday morning when I got up around 5:45, so I postponed the run and went back to bed and napped until about 11.  Is that really napping or just more sleeping?  I ran with Joe and Alex around 2:00PM instead and felt like doo-doo.  Legs were heavy, wind was blowing at our faces somehow from all but one direction, and I was totally down on myself for only having run 13 miles this week at that point.  I whined and moaned my way through 6 miles.  Bless the hearts of Joe and Alex for putting up with me.

Even after that crappy, crappy Saturday afternoon run, I felt AWESOME this morning.  The long run plan for this week was 13 miles, but around mile 11 I thought about going for 15 instead.  Then some crazy lady on almost hit me and I just wanted to get home.  Apparently, she didn't like it that I stuck out my arm, motioning for her to move over with no other cars coming from the opposite direction.  After passing me, she laid on her horn.  Still running, I turned around and threw up both of my arms to suggest, "What's up your hole?!" to see that she had stopped her car in the road.  I continued on my way, then heard her door slam shut and her shrieking, "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!  YOU GET BACK HERE!  NAG NAG NAG!"  I have to pat myself on the back--I didn't turn back again to entertain her.  I figured had I stopped and a confrontation ensued, I would have ended up pepper spraying her.  I didn't want to do that, and this woman was clearly nuts, so I took the higher road.  Tammy and Susan have told me a story of a crazy lady in her car at the train tracks nearby who went batshit on them once (for a different reason).  I wonder if this was the same nut.