I Guess it Had to Happen Sometime

For the first time ever, I quit.  I've had many runs that have been bad, one's that I barely finished, but this was the first one I just plain quit.  I woke up Sunday a little sick, so I spent the day loading up on all my immune boosting supplements, hoping that when Monday came around, I'd be well enough for my long run.  It didn't work.  I decided to go out and run it anyway, after all, it was just a little cold...I could still run!  My training plan called for a 175 minute run (just under 3 hours) which at my current long run pace would somewhere around 10-11 miles (yep, I'm that slow!).  The run started out fine, I actually ended up "running" into an old friend during my first mile, so we ran together for a bit and chatted.  It was great!  But during that time I ran faster than I should have and my heart rate got way to high.  I'm supposed to run my long runs with my heart rate under 140, but I let it slip too high because I wasn't paying attention to my pace, and it ended up reaching 170's.  After that it was hard to get my heart rate back down, and keep it down.  Eventually I just gave up and decided to try just keeping it under 150, hoping after a mile or so my body would settle down a bit.  Nope.  By the time I finished mile 4, I was running nearly 20 min/mile and still unable to keep my heart rate down.  I was also feeling miserable.  My body just wasn't having it!  Trying to fight off sickness, plus running, plus trying to keep me warm in the rain...it was just too much.

I stopped off in a public park to sit for a few minutes, to see if I could get my heart rate calmed down so I could head home. I knew I'd be short of my required time, but I also knew I couldn't pull off the full 3 hours.  After sitting for a few minutes, my heart rate was still crazy high. That's when I made the decision to ask my husband to come get me.  I was miserable, I was tired and I was cold.  While I probably could have made it home, I knew that at such a high heart rate, it would probably do more harm than good.  

Of course my husband immediately came to get me, thankfully his job allows him the flexibility to do that!  As I sat in the park waiting, I was still trying to accept the decision I made.  In my head I knew it was the right one, but I still questioned it.  I'm just weeks away from my goal race, did I just set myself up for failure?  Are all those weeks I put into training going to go to waste?  Of course not, but I still had those doubts.

I spent the rest of the day in bed, binge watching Netflix.  Since my Garmin has a built in heart rate monitor, I kept an eye on my heart rate.  Even after spending hours in bed, my heart rate was still only in the 90's!  Which for my is high, since it's usually in the 60's.  That helped confirm that I did make the right decision.  My body needed rest, it's working hard to fight off sickness, and running will just make things worse.  So, I'm taking some time off to recover and looking forward to getting back to running soon!  Once my body is ready.

A post shared by Jessica (@runningslowfaster) on Apr 25, 2017 at 9:55am PDT