Have you ever had a training run where everything just kept going wrong? Like, nothing truly catastrophic happened, but multiple little annoyances piled up until most of your energy was sourcing from general pissiness?
Let me walk you through this run I had a couple weeks ago:
My alarm goes off at 5:40am. The temperature is perfect for an outdoor run. I get up, slap on my clothes, put in my contacts, put my keys in my hidden pants pocket, and am munching on my Vitamuffin when I realize: I forgot to charge my GPS watch. And it’s almost dead.
Okay, new plan. I’ll go to the gym and use the treadmill. Unfortunately, I’ve been lollygagging a bit as when on an outdoor run I don’t have to worry about the quarter mile walk to the gym, putting my stuff in a locker, filling my water bottle, etc. I throw on a hoodie, grab my backpack, and power walk to my gym.
I hop on the treadmill, only a few minutes behind. Score! My long pants are a little hot indoors, but whatever. I’ll just be sweaty. Also, it’s kind of awkward with my contacts in. All the sudden I notice how weird it is to look at yourself in the mirror while running. This is why I usually just wear glasses there and take them off. Disconcerting, but whatever.
Ooh, yeah, definitely sweaty. I reach for my towel and accidentally knock off the emergency stop magnet. I come to a shuddering halt with no way of starting again without beginning anew entirely. DAMMIT. This completely ruins my flow. But there’s not much to be done but take a picture of my progress so far and restart the treadmill.
All is going well – until I somehow manage to yank out the emergency stop magnet AGAIN. Honestly, has this thing ever been used for an actual emergency? I have never once seen anyone clip it to their clothing. All it seems to do is mess up my intervals. I take another picture and start anew.
Of course, by this time my actual time and distance is all scrambled. I need to figure it out fast so that I can hit my mileage goal but still make it to work on time. Naturally my brain is so scattered by this point it takes me an embarrassing amount of time to do some simple addition. I finally arrive at the proper number but in my distracted state manage to miss hitting the stop button at the correct time. I’m only a few seconds off but I’m annoyed at myself for committing such a stupid error.
Oh, I’m whining. It all turned out okay. My uncertainty about how much time I had left led me to push myself a little harder, so that’s good. And everything that went wrong was my own bloody fault, so there’s no one to blame but myself. One thing’s for certain – I’ll be hyper-paranoid about keeping my GPS watch charged from now on!
Have you ever had a run where things were just not going your way?
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