Hitting the Wall

Mon, April 4
Ran/Mostly walked for 42 minutes around the indoor track at JCU during lunch
Distance: 3 miles; Pace: 14'08"

Well, the calves beat me today. I slept in and planned to either run outside or at the indoor track (ugh) during lunch instead. Since it was thundering and lightening, I opted for the indoor track. I mean it was only 40 minutes, how bad could it be, right? Bad. I only got 5 minutes in when my calves were killing me. I mean, bad. Usually I can talk myself out of it and push through, and I'm okay, but it just didn't feel right at all and I decided that listening to my body is probably a good thing at this juncture. I don't want to risk major injury and jeopardize my race next month. So, I decided to walk. I walked for 40 minutes and then added a few just so I could get to 3 miles. I felt good that I did it, but truth be told, I felt like a big failure. This is the first time in all of my training that I've had to walk. One acquaintance of mine who is a marathon runner tried to tell me a week ago, that it is all in my head; that this running thing is all mental. While I can understand how you can psych yourself out and have a positive or negative experience during your run, I also know that this problem is not mental...it is in my friggin' legs. I stretched before I ran today, but could only afford about 5 minutes since it was during lunch.

Maybe it was just too much after the long run on Saturday. I'm hoping that is it. I'm just trying to be so diligent about following my training schedule. I mean, I agree with this "listen to your body" stuff, but I also know that my mind can also provide excuses too that let my body off the hook. They just need to be in better sync with each other...gotta work on that.