Self Beat Down

The days of little miss wishy-washy runner are officially over. I've now had two weekends in a row where my long run has fallen significantly short of my goal. And not only that, but I've had to do a bit more walking than I'd like. I beat myself up pretty good on Sunday during and after my 10 mile long run that ended up being a 7.5 mile run with 3 walk breaks thrown in. It finally hit me: you cannot continue to take multiple days off in a row then expect to be able to kick ass whenever you feel like it. And that's the nice (and short) version of what I actually told myself. So this morning, all black and blue from my self-beat-down, I headed out again to try for a bit of redemption. The plan was 5 miles. I did get the full 5 done but I did have to stop once and walk for 3 minutes (yes, I timed the walk). Also, and this is probably because I was still pretty mad at myself, I chose the route with the most hills possible. Yeah, that made it all kinds of fun. But now I'm happy to say that even sitting here black and blue and with burning hamstrings, I feel good. I think hitting that wall was exactly what I needed to have happen to get me out of the "whatever" funk that I was in. I just assumed that when I finally decided to get off my ass and get consistent again, it would all just come back. Well, it doesn't work that way. My lungs were sure to remind me of that fact. This week I'll be back at the track for speed work with my group...and after 3 weeks away, it should be nice and ugly but I'm going anyway. I have to get back to the routine! The schedule for this Saturday's long run is 10 - 12 miles. I'll be happy if I get 10 in. Hopefully by Saturday, I'll be feeling a bit better and even if I have to stop and walk, I hope I wont beat myself up again because at least I'm aware of how bad I screwed up and am trying to fix it.

In other news:

1. How much does your heart break for Deena Kastor? The official update from her coach is that "she suffered a broken bone in the distal head of the 3rd metatarsal in her right foot. It is a clean break all the way through. The doctors did not have to set the bone since the X ray showed that it was lined up where it should be. They have immobilized her foot, and she is now on crutches. We will do further tests when she returns home to the U.S." Sad, sad, sad. I can't even begin to imagine.

2. Constantina Tomescu is officially my new hero. She kicked some serious ass!! As a fellow 38 year old mom, she had me jumping up and down in front of the t.v.!

3. Heartburn. Yeah. I have no idea what is happening but the last 3 times I've run, I have had serious heartburn that kicks in at mile 4. It's always mile 4. I haven't had heartburn this bad since I was pregnant with my first kid (and no, that is not it!). I spent a good amount of time with Google this morning and best as I can tell at this point is that it can be blamed on my crazy diet. In addition to getting off the running bandwagon, I also have been a pretty crappy eater since vacation. Lets just say there has been lots of burgers, chips, salsa, fries, crackers with pepper jack cheese, wine and beer involved. Not pretty. That nasty food is probably another reason why I'm a bit cranky.