When Running Isn't Fun

It's week 15 of 18. This is the last big week of training, peaking at 65miles before trending down to race day. That's the good news, because I'm tired, and I don't really want to run any more.

The training has really worn on me, but in surprising ways. My muscles have rarely ever been sore, even after the hardest workouts. Man have they been tight though! Over the past few weeks, my calves and achilles have gotten ever tighter, requiring diligent rolling and stretching. I woke up one morning this week and could barely walk due to foot pain. After rolling my sole with a racquetball all day at school, it slowly loosened up, but I skipped a workout because of it.

Overall, I've been able to deal with the aches and pains. Compression gear, rolling, stretching all really help tightness and soreness, but they don't make me feel any stronger. The longer I train, the more frail and unstable my legs feel. I step on a patch of grass and tweak an ankle! It has made me really miss trail running and regret running exclusively on pavement.

More than leg soreness, time management has been the major obstacle. On top of school, work, marriage, and surviving, running consistently is difficult! To put in 10+mi in the middle of the week is hard physically and logistically. Up to this weekend, I had 16 straight days of work, school, exams, or combinations of the three. The cumulative load of everything has hurt me most in quality of sleep and rest. I've been able to make most workouts but I've been generally exhausted, and I've noticed the effect on my quality of running. With soreness and stress, I've missed my weekly mileage for the last couple weeks (peak weeks).

Hopefully, the last few weeks of tapering will give me the rest I need to succeed in the BQ attempt. At this point, I'm having doubts, though. Have I run fast enough? Have I run far enough? This was going to be the benchmark week for me, especially with the last 16miler this weekend. Here we are on Monday, though, receiving about a foot of snow. That does not bode well for the week! Shoveling snow is roughly equivalent to running 8miles right?