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September 24, 2007

The Price of Laziness

Yesterday I had a long run on the schedule. Nothing horribly massive, just a nice 2:45 run where I was supposed to pick up the pace slightly during the last 30 minutes. Piece of cake, right?

Wrong.

The excuses started early. I was at my parents' house in Michigan and hadn't packed for 55-degree weather, which is what we had early in the morning. (Lesson learned: check the predicted LOWS as well as the highs.) I'd also forgotten my Garmin, so I'd be running totally watchless and HR-monitorless. I figured I could probably pace myself reasonably well, but I wasn't sure if I had the guts to try and find out. I thought about just toughing it out. I thought about waiting until later in the day. Then I decided that in addition to not wanting to spend the first hour of my run freezing and going out too fast, I also didn't want to run for that long and then sit in a car for 5 hours while I drove back to Chicago. So my solution would be to leave Michigan early, drive back to Chicago, and then do my long run in the evening.

Except once I got home, I felt tired. However, I'd gotten home earlier than expected, so I had time for a nap. I took one. When I woke up I was still feeling tired, unmotivated, and on top of it all I was also feeling hungry and dehydrated. I decided to skip the run, and instead had some dinner and a bunch of water.

This was all fine - I got some work done, I sort of watched a football game - until the time when it was Definitely Too Late to start running. Then I felt antsy. Twitchy. Like I really should have gone for the run instead of sitting on my butt all day. On top of that, I didn't sleep well once I got to bed. Clearly my body had the energy stored up to run and now it had nowhere to go.

Lesson for the future: Do your long runs in the morning, no matter what. Also, when going out of town, pack for more types of weather than you think you'll need to.

Posted by Dawn at September 24, 2007 12:19 PM