Fueled By Lolz

Fueled By Lolz
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Newsletter about running, training, and everything happening in the running industry.
I'll be honest. I was feeling less than inspired this week for a newsletter. I had no idea what I wanted to talk about!
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But then it hit me when I walked away from a "bad" race on Saturday . You see I drove 6 hours to Napa to run the WineShine Half Marathon. I planned to run between 1:30-1:33 half marathon but the minute I started running, I knew it was not my day. My legs were tired, and mentally, I was tired too.
I shouldn't be surprised. Last week, we packed and moved our entire house, plus I'm currently in a life transition as I get used to my new job. We didn't leave for the race until after work, and also arrived much later than I would have liked. All of these factors contributed to waking up on race day and not feeling good.
I should clarify: the race was not "bad". I made the choice to take it easy instead of running 6:50 miles and blowing up. So when I didn't feel good at mile 1, I decided it would be a nice long run through my old area. I removed the race component. I must admit, if you're ever looking for a race in Napa, the WineShine is a great option with more swag than any other race I've done.
Anyway, so to the topic of this week's newsletter:
Every athlete has both good days and bad days. It doesn't matter whether you are new or have run 100 marathons. We all have a bad day from time to time. Don't let your bday days define you.
Most bad races have a silver lining. Getting over a back from a race means finding those. When I crossed the finish line at the WineShine Half, my first thought, was: Wow I felt awful.
Then I quickly remembered I’m injury-free. It's important to look at the silver line and the positives:
Did you finish healthy and injury-free?
Could you smile afterward and have a good day?
Did you enjoy running in a new spot?
Immediately during the race, I knew several factors that contributed to not feeling great. Sometimes it might take longer to figure out "why you didn't run well". I've had races that didn't go well that took me days to figure out why, Then suddenly it hit me.
Have you been eating well? Well can also mean "enough"?
Are you stressed about something outside of running?
How was your training? Really, how was it?
This week I'm really focusing on getting more sleep (because I'm in the sleep hole). I told myself if that meant missing workouts because I slept in, so be it (and that is exactly what happened today!).
You'll never move on and get over your bad race if you dwell on it. Look back and try and improve whatever affected you during the race.
With distance running, there is always another race. There are always more long runs. Just because it went bad doesn't mean they all will!
After running a bad race, it's important to take time to recover. Even though the race didn’t go well, don’t go crazy with training. This week I've decided to take some downtime. I'm not going to run for a few days, maybe longer, and just recover. Mayve I'll swim, but maybe not. I don't know, I'll do what feels good that day. Downtime is physically and mentally important to come back from a bad race.
After you recover, set your sights on running a PR, a new time goal, or maybe a new event. Maybe you need a change in training plans, training cycles, or a new running coach.
Or maybe you want to run longer races…
Who knows: find something that interests you and brings the spark back.
Remember, there are many race days to come. For me personally, I have many races coming up in the fall and I want to be able to run them! While I'm not looking for magical redemption, I'm looking forward to chipping away my time and getting back into better fitness.
Getting over a bad race is not as scary as it seems. You'll chase a new goal or dream by reflecting, refocusing, and changing your mindset. As runners, we all have these races, but we all have the good ones too!
Track and Field Worlds, of course! There has already been a lot happening in these short days.

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LOLZletter 170 | Starting Later in Life
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Hollie. Socially inappropriate. Nonexistent in real life. Runner. Blogger and Ambassador of the LOLZ

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Fueled By Lolz

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