Burnout

Those back to back races caught up with me this week. Or maybe not.

Whenever I would train for Grandma's I would hit this "burnout" about this time in the year. I just don't want to run. I am tired and sluggish. Maybe it is the goofy weather.

I have confidence that I can still perform well next week with 3 weeks of only 10 mile runs or less. At this point, I don't think any other stuff would help me all that much, and could possibly impede my recovery from the last two weeks.

I should be nervous, but I am not (yet).

I guess this sluggishness is good at this point, as I will be back to myself by next week.

Very few people outside of this blog know I am doing the 100 miler. I purposely don't tell non runners, because it becomes annoying to attempt an explanation. Just Sunday, after my wife told a dinner companion about it, this dinner companion started asking me about my "pace". Of course, I answered "I don't know". This person was trying to equate his half marathon training and racing time to trail running. I tried to explain to him that it is apples and oranges, but he did not get it. I think he thought my Superior 50K "pace" was rather slow. I could almost see his cartoon bubble "even I could run faster than that!"

I have learned I don't run these for dinner conversations.

After Ice Age, Todd, Steve, and I were talking about why we did these things. I think we all had one thing in common. We were intrigued by pushing ourselves into a situation where we were afraid to go. Going through those stages is tough, but getting through them is glorious. It is hard to explain, but I enjoy it.

The great thing is, one can experience this at many levels. So, even if you are on your first 5k quest or marathon quest, you will experience a dark side of yourself. How you handle that reveals a part of who you are. I call it my shadow.

Okay... this post rambled. blah blah blah.

It is helping me get my game back, so just deal.