Car Accidents and Lost Mojo – 4 weeks to Berlin
School started back on August 1st, but ALL activities started back this week. And I mean ALL !!! I’ve been occupied trying to arrange everything and realizing that in spite of pulling out of a few activities, both my kids are scheduled with something or the other every.single.day of the week!! And both need a music class to be scheduled still. How does that even happen??
This week was completely about the crazyness of dealing with a 4 car accident that I got into. I was stopped in slow moving traffic when a car came at full speed (thank God it was speed on the ramp onto a highway, not full speed of the highway. So “only” 45mph-ish compared to 65+mph). I could see the car coming up behind me at speed and all I could do was brace for the impact. Being the car that got the maximum impact, my car has extensive damage to the front and back which the other insurance is taking care of.
Monday: Yoga Class that included some much needed hip openers
Tuesday, Wednesday: Skipped my runs as an aftermath of the accident
Thursday: I pulled myself together and after a LOT of procrastination ran 5.5 miles on the treadmill
Friday: My mood was starting to look up and I did another 4 miles on the treadmill
Saturday: This was supposed to be my LONG long run of 16 miles/4 hours. I was well rested and all but for whatever reason had (another) MISERABLE long run. I had trouble when we started at 5:30am within 2-3 miles. And that didn’t go away even when I would get a 2nd wind. When I just couldn’t keep up even at a 14:30 pace with a couple of friends, I pulled the plug and walked it in to have a total of 12 “running” miles and 2 walking miles.
This was the worst confidence buster – to not be able to keep up with anyone and to be dropped by a group who are no-drop (I insisted that they drop me). I was past the point of taking refuge in tears and instead calmly talked to my coach. He was far more kinder than I was and we changed the remaining 4 weeks to runs that would give me a little more confidence. The next 4 weeks is not going to improve my performance any better than what is currently projected, but we don’t want to do anything that pushes me back; and all these long runs that I am struggling at is pushing back at my confidence. So we agreed that our #1 goal should be to improve my confidence and give me back the sense of accomplishment after each run so I can go into Berlin fairly confidence with excited expectations.
Sunday: One of the BEST outings I have had! Ms. Teenager was at a sleepover and I had slept in. When she came home, I asked her if she’d like to accompany me for a walk at the river. She emphatically did not walk to run and came out in PJs. But we walked together for about an hour on the trails and we talked and talked. We only had one slight misunderstanding towards the very end but we immediately agreed to let it go since we were both hangry by then.
I got to say hello to Augusta friends and Debbie let me try a medieval torture device on my quads and hamstrings.
I am not too thrilled with the way all my long runs have gone, but I am looking forward to the last 4 weeks. I have started planning the details of our Berlin trip so that is getting me excited. And I’m taking sneak peaks into vacations for the next year (which is NOT planned around a marathon)
