I'm not going to lie, the last month has been a real struggle. Both physically and mentally.
The root cause is something I've thought about a lot and by and large I think it's the result of several different things.
In no particular order I came up with...
Post big event depression. Yes, The Relay. It was my only event last season and I'd been really excited about this event from the first time I'd heard about it almost 15 months before it's inaugural running. Combine that really long uncertain buildup with an event that went beyond my expectations and basically played out over 50 something hours and well.... there is a let down when it's all said and done and nothing else is on the calender.
Getting taken down by a really bad case of the flu the morning after the Relay. I went down really hard for five solid days. The congestion was monumental.
Spring. After taking seven straight days off and with lungs still really full of crap, I once again hit the trails. They were literally covered in yellow pine pollen. I could not get any air. Running just 100 yards was brutal and I'd start hacking like the three pack a day smoker I used to be.
My Relay runs. I ran three short legs. As I said in the blog after the event, I felt two of them were disasters even though my pace was more than a minute faster than anything I've ever run. The best description I could come up with then was "uncomfortable." When you're on a team and the best you got doesn't even get you within a minute of the maximum allowed pace for the event, that means all of your team mates have to make up for your shortcomings.
On my first run which was the 5th leg, all I could think was "hurry up!" The course was a little hilly and it threw my normal run/walk routine for a loop. I settled down for my second leg and it was an awesome experience. When we came back on for our third runs, we were told we were basically the last team on the course and there was some concern about us getting to a specific point before the cutoff. Well hell! On that run I was pretty much ramped up to "hurry the fuck up!" mode. Which for me is still almost a minute short of the allowed time. Inadequate. I never felt any chest pain or anything physical that set off any alarms. I don't know... I think it's probably all a mental thing... I was just way out of my comfort zone. Fear.
So, knocked down physically and battling all the gremlins, I've been really struggling.
Over the 10 days or so, the air has cleared and my lungs mostly have as well. Outside of a little bit of a fitness setback that all these far less intense outings have caused, things are once again returning to normal. While some of this was seemingly apparent during the ordeal, nothing was really decisive so many outings were fraught with doubt. It's really hard to explain... why something that should be pretty obvious leads to so much doubt for so long.
I'm wondering if the fear thing with the heart ever goes away. I'm also not sure fear is actually a bad thing.
You had a rough go of it for a few weeks but you're back out there and will get back up to speed - your speed. That's the only one that counts in the long haul. Hang in there!
