Week 7 Run 1 - what went wrong?

[notbad]

... I felt so darn proud of myself after run 3 of Wk6, I handled the 25 minutes quite well (nearly bursting into song to the music at one point) & was as high as a kite when I finished.

Fast forward to today - same 25 minutes but it felt so much tougher - my legs were tired & I didn't quite cover the same distance which felt demoralising. I finished it, which is an achievement but am still disappointed that I found it so hard.

Last night watching the track events I was saddened to see a few athletes apologising & beating themselves up for not finishing in the position they would have liked, I thought what a great achievement it was just for them to be there competing at that level & they should celebrate that fact. Yet here I am today doing basically the same thing - 7 weeks ago I struggled running each 60 second burst, now I can run 25 minutes, I really should celebrate that fact instead of focusing on my disappointment today.

Any moral support or words of advice however, will be more than welcome.

[Elizadolots Graduate]

Do you know, some runs are just harder than others! Whether it is because you didn't sleep well the night before, or maybe had too much on in the day, or for no apparant reason at all. I bet it happens to even the best athletes, and remember that we are only building our bodies up now to a good level of fitness. ( I also felt so sorry that they felt the need to apologise, they are the best in the world and wish they could just live in that moment, that experience!)

I don't get put off by those runs, simply move on to the next. And you should do that too! 25 minutes is amazing, and the next 25 will also be. Give yourself a big pat on the back for completing and set your focus forward.

Well done you for keeping going when it got a bit hard!

[notbad Graduate in reply to Elizadolots]

Thanks Elizadolots, I had a migraine yesterday and that may possibly have wacked me (did feel very tired all weekend). You're right, we're all in that stage of still building fitness & I must remind myself of that.

[littlejan Graduate]

Morning,

Im not just saying this but if you look on the tags for week 7 you will see I felt exactly the same, really really struggled, even 5 min into the run, I did finish it as I have all the runs but ws about to give up on the programme, , but I went to do the 2nd run anway and it was much easier, even to the point on the last 60 seconds I managed to run that little bit faster.

The sad thing for me is on Friday after that run I went for a meal and has 2 glasses of wine and since then have had a migraine, even got it now so, I have not manahed to do the last run of week 7 in that week. grrrrr.

So please dont feel down, you will do better next time and you will also see in the tags for week 7 that loads of people struggled for what ever reason. Keep going.

[notbad Graduate in reply to littlejan]

Sorry to hear that you've been laid low with a migraine littlejan, I had one too this weekend (it magically cleared with the horrendous thunder storm yesterday) - hope you get over it soon. Many thanks for your kind words of encouragement, I will check out those week 7 tags, it always helps to know I'm not alone.

[Legion Graduate]

Well done for getting through the run, even though you were tired. You should be very proud of that. I've been feeling much like you for the last week, and didn't quite manage all of W6,R2. It's strange, isn't it, to go from feeling so proud of running for 60 seconds to feeling defeated on a much longer run? I guess it gives us an insight into how, and why, those athletes feel as they do when they don't quite hit the mark. I think we both need to remind ourselves of the fantastic progress we have already achieved, take an extra days rest to give our bodies a chance to recover from something much harder than we have asked of them before, and come back feeling proud and fresh again. We CAN do this!

[notbad Graduate]

Thanks Legion - you're right it won't always be easy but we CAN do it (by the way I found W6 R2 mysteriously hard too & was in a worse state after it than R3) - best of luck for your next run.