Adaptability

Today was a learning day, and I think we all need these once in a while.  After enjoying a 12 oz sirloin at Ruth’s Chris last night – first steak since late ‘08, and oh lordy it was good (but coulda done without the price tag!) – I had to keep to my training schedule and pull a 9 miler out of the can today.

Well, Murphy’s Law hit me from all sides.  I was up ‘til 5 watching the women’s WC marathon, slept 4 fitful hours, drank coffee and had a donut, failed to consume any useful calories, and sat around until 2:30 before I ran.  Once out the door, it took 10 minutes of wandering the neighborhood and rebooting my iPhone before the GPS could find a satellite, my Achilles throbbed from the first step, RunKeeper shut down mysteriously for a mile so I lost my time and distance, and construction had closed the trail I was running, so I had to abandon my meticulously pre-planned route and wing it (with my distances all thrown to hell after the RunKeeper nonsense).  At what I took to be 6ish miles in, the ol’ hamstrings decided they’d had enough, a mile further along my toes alerted me that my shoes are 1/2 size too small for long runs, and I spent the last three miles walking a minute for every four I ran.  And I finally gave it up a mile from home and walked in.

Wow, right?  A hundred reasons to just turn around, go home and call it a day.  We’ve all these days, and we all know that temptation to just bag it.  But this is where the lesson comes in.

I adjusted my stride, just a bit, to try and go easy on the Achilles.  It didn’t solve the problem, but it let me run.  I found a new route to run.  I got to practice guessing at distances.  I got a good idea of some things I need to improve on, so I can work on them and not be surprised if they come up in a race.  And I learned that “Tuesday’s Gone” by Lynyrd Skynyrd has a near-perfect running cadence.  Who knew?  In short, I adapted.

This is the beauty and the difficulty in running; dealing with obstacles thrown in our path when we’re already tired and hot and sweaty and hurting.  It makes us feel weak at first to be thrown off stride, but ultimately we feel and are stronger for overcoming it.  We have to adapt to the situation as it unfolds, because it’s unpredictable – our legs can hurt, it can be too hot or too cold or start hailing or our bowels can refuse to cooperate.  So we learn to focus on what we can do, and not what we can’t.  What we did, rather than what we didn’t.  It doesn’t matter that I didn’t run the last mile; I did run the first 8.75! 

What did I learn?  That I can run nearly nine miles, no matter how bad I feel.  And that I can almost hit goal pace, even with a good dose of walking thrown in.  That my sense of distance needs some practice.  And that my pacing is getting much better.  These are good things, and as I hobble around for the next 24 hours with sore legs, I’ll remember them, and be ready to attack it again on Tuesday.

105 days to Vegas! (powered by Zappos.com!)