I've hit the Wall

   Well let's be honest... I hit the wall a LONG time ago... Actually I am pretty sure I started up against the wall from the very beginning! It's getting so close to the marathon, less than 2 weeks and I am feeling utterly unprepared!  Yes I know, you are all probably thinking, how is that possible... But my training this season had a few flaws.  I never seemed to figure out a rhythmn and have a consistent work out time.  I hate making excuses for myself but these are the valid reasons:

    1.Work -  At the beginning of the summer right when training was starting, work got crazy busy, so much so that I was given "unlimited" overtime.  While that sounds exciting when you are getting paid hourly, it ended up sucking up my summer.  For almost 2 whole months I worked from 6am until 7 or 7:30 each night.  The one night I got home at almost 8pm, ate dinner and cried... I know, I know pathetic, but when you are at work more than not and can't even see a ray of sunshine other than the 30 minute lunch break, it begins to wear on you.  By friday I was exhausted and it became the big joke in the family that I would come home, take a nap, eat dinner and then go back to bed by 9pm!  I'm 23 years old, I shouldn't be going to bed at 9pm on a friday night.  Saturdays became my bust your butt workout because I rarely could manage the energy to crank out a 3 mile run during the week.  And bust my butt I did!  Then Sundays I would head back to work and put in atleast a 4 hour work day! 

    2. My Triathlons - While training for the triathlons has been AWESOME and a great way for me to break up the monotony of running.  The races on the weekends often cut in to the long training runs on the weekends.  I raced in three triathlons this season,  with 2 of them just 2 weeks apart.  It was fine though, I planned the training around the races.  What I didn't take into account was #3...

    3.  Getting Sick! - Everything I have read, says that athletes, especially runners and triathletes are more likely to get sick after a race than not to.  After my Chicago Triathlon, I was extremely drained, probably because of my stupid water debacle (Don't remember?  Relive my disaster here).  But I got a horrible head coldand by the following weekend I was out of commission, I even skipped out on a family party and laid on the couch all day!  I think I even had a fever, but I was too comfy on the couch to care enough to take it.  I was concerned, so I took care of myself as best I could and then I raced in the Lake Geneva Tri, and it rained for the whole thing!  Yeah... so much for getting better...  So needless to say I have been fighting off another pretty bad cold... its amazing how a cold can really knock you on your butt like that!

     4.  Other Obligations -  I swear every time I was going to do a long run, something would unexpectedly come up that I have no control over and I wouldn't get a long run in.  Or even the rain!  Last weekend I wanted to get in my 20 mile run and so I started running with my Dad outside, three miles in and it was lightening and thundering... yeah I want to run but I also want to LIVE!  Thank goodness I have a gym membership, I went to the gym and ended up running 13 miles on the treadmill... Any runner knows how horrible it is to run that distance on a treadmill.  But I was on a strict timeline and so 16 miles is all that I managed to get in...

   So 16 miles is the farthest I have made it in my marathon training.  And I just got back from a training run... 3 miles and I felt like CRAP!  I'm sincerely hoping that it just happened to be a bad running day...I know I can do it... Just not feeling it today...  I'm hoping that my overall fitness will carry me through!

Unmotivated and Concerned but Determined and Stubborn!