Bad run...

[qobsmith]

Wow. I'd heard of the "bad run" phenomena, but only had my first yesterday.

It was a glorious day and I'd had plenty of rest since my début race (thanks to stupidly injuring my foot moments after finished by walking into a bicycle pedal <- genius) so I thought with all that rest and all that mental positivity I was going to thrash this nice leisurely run and feel amazing!

Not so... My pulse was insane even at an easy pace for me, I felt I could hardly breathe and I ended up with such a bad headache and stitch that I just bailed out. Technically, I covered 5k, but at a miserably slow, painfully dragging scramble of a walk.

I'm blaming not being hydrated enough and not getting enough sleep lately. I'm trying to convince myself that it was a one off disaster, because it's convincing myself that's half the battle!

Oh well, the dog had fun.

[millwalki8 Graduate]

We all get them matey dont beat yourself over it, the next one will be great again

[jules50 Graduate]

Its happened to me a few times, mostly due to equipment malfunction (my phone crashed yesterday so no music and no sound on my 10k training plan), but sometimes down to just not being in the right frame of mind, letting the gremlins win!! But never mind and onwards and upwards eh??!! Your next run will be amazing don't worry

[BoPeep9009 Graduate]

Oh dear!

Unless you've got a chest infection don't worry! Sleep and drink more (water!) and head out again in a couple of days. It'll be different again I'm sure!

[Tomas Graduate]

Some runs are great, others are bad. And you only notice the greatness of the great ones by having some bad ones to compare against. It's all part of the experience. So while it's frustrating to not perform as well as you had hoped to, just count it as a learning experience. The next one will be great

[Steve_L Graduate]

I had one yesterday. For some reason I felt like I ran out of energy and it was a real struggle to keep any kind of pace to the end of my 5K. The way you look at it, though, is, I'm sure largely mental. I ran the 5k in 32 minutes, which I'd have been delighted with just a few weeks ago, but for some reason, I felt it was a bad run.

Today I just went out with the intention of running comfortably for 10k and wasn't too bothered about the time. I enjoyed it. Try the same sort of thing.

[Rob_and_his_westie Graduate]

Hey, it happens. After nearly two years at this, it still happens to me! But look on the bright side, a bad run is better than no run and there's always tomorrow......

[Andreagetfit1]

It was pretty warm yesterday, maybe you were just a bit dehydrated and pushing yourself too much? Relax, it will be fine and come good again!

[agedsnailspace Graduate]

Some days the love is just not there. Not necessarily any rhyme nor reason. I'm wondering though for this one if maybe you had set off with high expectations that meant you started off too fast - whatever, it's done. The great thing about believing in yourself as a runner is that you now have the right to bail out if a run when it just doesn't feel right and defer it to another day (though I have only ever done this once; the purist in me always wants to push onto the end regardless even when there is no joy involved at all).

Write it off as a bad run, think of it no more and let us know how the next one goes.

[qobsmith Graduate]

Yeah I think I was too set on achieving a set distance in a set time so when I felt awful I punished myself for it! My foot has been really bad this week so it was probably my body telling me to go home and rest instead of trying to run. I've rested it all week and I think by the end of this week I'll be ready to run something fun, rather than trying to achieve something.