Balance.

May 4, 2010 at 1:29 pm | Posted in And I ran (I ran so far away), motherhood | 10 Comments

I really am starting to wonder if I had post-half-marathon depression or something.

Because the past week and a half has been sort of miserable. On a lot of fronts.

The day after the run, I wanted a DO OVER. I wanted to go back and make it what I HOPED it would be. I wanted to sleep the whole night with my family in the hotel room WITH me. I wanted to nix the pre-race nerves and toddler temper tantrums. I wanted to be able to rest in the car on the way home, instead of driving the whole thing myself to spell my poor exhausted husband.

But mostly, I wanted to finish the race strong and feel accomplishment untainted by “well, I didn’t do the time I wanted, but whatever. I finished!”

I’m not saying that I’m NOT proud of finishing. I am.

I just sort of wish I had finished DIFFERENTLY, that’s all.

And then I got to work on Monday. And the auditors are here. And it’s their JOB to FIND stuff that was wrong.

And damned if they didn’t find some issues with MY area. Despite the fact that I worked my ASS off on making it squeaky clean.

And J and I fought over the course of two days, and O was off his game, and I got AF in full force and I was sore and it was raining.

Yada yada yada blah blah BLAH.

Basically it all just threw this MASSIVE weight on my shoulders.

I think I’m coming out of it now, though. The past couple of days I’ve felt my mood lift slightly.

It’s helped that I’m back to running again, though less distance and quite a bit slower. (My knees are inexplicably achy, so I want to take it easy.)

I’m also planning ahead, and finally made a decision on something that has been plaguing me for a good month now.

I mentioned that I signed up for a marathon in one of my earlier posts. Because I was all gung ho on running and I had momentum and I thought it would be good to take advantage of that momentum and go all out.

On the way to the half, I mentioned to J that I wasn’t sure I wanted to do the full marathon. Mostly because of the time commitment. Because I was tired of training. Because now that the weather’s getting nice, I want to spend time outside with my family instead of spending 4 hours of my Saturday running. And honestly, I was TIRED all the time from running a few weeks before the half. My pace was suffering. I didn’t like it as much. I didn’t WANT to get out of bed to run.

And then I ran the half, and hit the proverbial wall at mile 10. Yes, I finished, and yes, I was happy that I did, but it was a pretty big reality check for me. Because that finish line only would have been the halfway point in a full marathon.

I was on the fence though. Because, you see, I had COMMITTED to doing one. And how would I know that I couldn’t do something like this unless I tried it?

J thought I could. He and my friend D kept telling me I didn’t need to make a decision now, I could just start the training program and see how I felt. And it made sense, really, it did.

But D did ask me how I thought I’d manage a training program that called for double the mileage.

And then? Well, it all sort of came to a head.

I CAN’T just START a training program without committing to it. I can’t say “well, let’s see how this works out.” Because for me, running means I have to push myself through the times that it’s hard. It means I have to steel myself to push up that hill, even though it hurts.

Because I KNOW myself. I’m not that kind of person who can just let things ride. I can’t turn off the overachiever inside me. If I am going to commit to a marathon, I am going to COMMIT. I’m just not made to say “well, let’s see what happens.”

So after my conversation with D, another conversation with a friend from college who is a marathoner (and now a running coach), talks with my sister and my friend Heather and BFF J, and then some more thinking and ruminating and obsessing?

I finally DECIDED something.

It’s not worth the freaking out I’ve been doing.

This isn’t my ONLY CHANCE to run a marathon, ever. I have made some changes to my life that I want to keep going for a very long time. Running is one of them, and I can’t risk the burnout of doing yet another race where I hit the wall and finish but in a time that makes me depressed because I worked my ASS off for so long only to blow it the day of the race. (And yes, I’m using hyperbole here. Mostly.)

So instead of the full marathon this October, I will run the half marathon instead.

However?

My goal this time is to cut 18 minutes off my last half marathon’s time. I want to finish around 2 hours.

And to do that, I’ve found a different training program this time. Which incorporates some hillwork, some interval training, the usual “easy” long runs, and a couple of races so I can find that balance between pushing myself and hitting the wall. It’s also a 4 day a week schedule, which makes it so that my usual runs don’t need to be AS long because I’m getting the weekly mileage numbers I need.

And J got me this as a gift. Part Mother’s Day, part Valentine’s Day, part “I love you and I want to support you in whatever you want to do.” Because my nike + ipod isn’t cutting it, and I want something that gives me DATA on when I’m pushing myself too far. Because I agree with my marathoner friend when she told me that I was burned out because I was running hard with every training run, and I needed to have a different faceted approach to raceday.

And truthfully, I’m excited about trying a new approach this time around. I’ve been reading good things about using a heart rate monitor on runs and how it can help runners find that magic balancing point where they’re pushing themself enough that it’s hard, but not too much that they hit that wall at mile 10.

And honestly, I can’t help thinking that maybe it’s NOT about finding my limits, like I thought.

Maybe it’s about balance and commitment and finding something that makes me feel good about myself.