Rough Times

This post is going to describe some of my "rough times" or"bad patches" that I have experience in my ultrarunning. The only difference today was that I was on mile 1 of a 9 mile jaunt. My legs were heavy from the get-go. I think Tuesday's workout really taxed my body. My mind was wondering. I found myself not focusing on my breathing or my stride for that matter. I kept telling my self to turn around at mile 3 and just make it a six mile run. I even thought about walking it in.

Now I've done a few ultra's to date. By no means am I a pro and know everything about the sport, but I do know that we all go through rough patches. In my first ultra (Wapack and Back 50) I had many. I never said i was going to quit, but my body hurt in ways that I don't think it ever felt before.  In my second ultra (NF Challenge DC), I was urinating coca-cola (blood) at mile 35.  Even in the last few ultra's, in which I fared well in, there were times when I asked myself, "Why do I do this to myself. I am never going to do this again!"

Of course I will. Run ultra's that is. Or just running in general. We all go through the tough miles, but if you run long enough, most of the time it will pass.

So, at about mile 5 things were looking up. My legs came back to life and I began cruising along. Up to that point my pace seemed extremely slow but all said and done I ended up with a 7:27 pace for 8.87 miles. A few hills slowed me down but i made up time on the downhills. This was a planned fartlek run and I actually got in 10 solid speed bursts of about 100 yards apiece.

I posted yesterday about a double gazebo negative split run and it never came to fruition. As I rode to grafton i thought about how much I hate loop runs/courses. My next ultra is a 5-loop 8 mile course. Go figure.