From running highs to very, very low

Well after my brilliant run on Friday (if you read back you’ll see that I hit another persoal best in the speed work!) I was hoping to do a repeat on my long run on Sunday. Well…not so much. I simply was NOT in the mood to run on Sunday. My head wasn’t in it. Usually by the time Saturday rolls around I’m starting to get excited at the prospect of my long run, anticipating it a little. This time on Saturday when my roommate asked me “are you looking forward to your run tomorrow?” I was surprised to realize that I wasn’t – not at all. I shrugged off the feeling and figured that by Sunday morning I’d be feeling better about it.

Sunday on the way to my starting point I STILL wasn’t feeling the run. I popped into the gym to use the bathroom and chatted with the manager for a few minutes and found myself almost whining about having to head out – never a good sign! But off I went, Ipod on for company. About 1km in I already wanted to give up, turn back and just do gym cardio instead. But I pushed on promising myself that it would get better. About 4km it started to rain. I used to LOVE running in the rain but ever since the day of the self cleaning pants (when I got so cold it took forever to warm up) I’ve had this dread of running in the rain. I told myself that if I could just do 15km out I could turn around, so I plodded along.

I got to the 15km mark and turned around for the trip back. I still wasn’t happy but knowing that I had pushed through the first half (even if it was 1k shorter than usual) felt pretty good. Then my IT-band tightened on me and my knee started to hurt. With about 4K left to go i stopped dead in the street (with something not so nice to say – out loud at that!) I walked it off for a few minutes and then ran again. The last bit of my run was a run 5min, walk 1 min until I was done and could hobble into the gym and hit the sauna – happy that at least I had finished.

In the end I did 29.5K (down a little from my usual 32K) and my pace was still good – less than 5min per km on average. The thing that worried me though is that usual I’m mentally pretty strong. When I hit those rough days I can dig deep and push myself through it, finishing as strong as possible. This time I didn’t seem to have what it takes to do that. To push through when the chips were down. Sure I finished the run, but I didn’t feel strong. Which makes me wonder – are some days just like that, or do I need to work more on the menal side of endurance? Do I have a marathon in me?

So my running friends – what do YOU do to get over a bad run and move on?