I've always had a bit of a 'thing' about blogs. Perhaps it's more that my friends had a 'thing' about blogs and that I just went along with their opinions to save face. 'Yeah, blogs are totally lame.'
I guess in general blogs do make me feel uncomfortable. In no way am I OK with divulging all of my inner thoughts for all the world to see. And talking about problems, especially those with people? Yeah right. I'm already paranoid enough with regards to making people upset with me when I interact with them face-to-face. The added stress of plastering their name in a hate post open to the public is completely unnecessary and to be avoided. However, the potential for blogs to be a good emotional outlet is there. That is, I guess, if you code names, remove any incriminating reference to place or situation ('oh my god she's talking about me...'), and add qualifiers to emotions ('I was mad that she punched me in the face but I was hungry and probably thinking irrationally...').
To avoid what will clearly be a high-anxiety situation, I will not be using this blog as a window to my inner workings. I'm going to use it to talk about running.
I ran competitively for 10 years, starting on my high school's varsity team in the spring of my 7th grade year when I ran a 2:29 in the 800. The change of the coaching staff during my sophomore year led to a change in my training. No longer were there "fun day Fridays" where the team would play running games such as Capture the Flag or Hide and Seek. Instead we now were following the Paavo Program which required 7 days a week of running and unnecessarily high mileage for teenagers. By senior year, I was running 60 miles a week. On Mondays I was out running 10 miles well under 8:00-pace. We never tapered and, if the program called for "SIs" (slow intervals--400 meter repeats with 3:00 inbetween) the day before race, we would do them. Sometimes we would even do 10x200 on the cross country course, immediately following a race. My coach concentrated on success at the high school level, with virtually no regard for life-long successful running careers for his athletes.
The Paavo program did lead to some good times my Senior year with an XC 5k time of 18:05, 3K time of 10:43, 1 mile of 5:09, 1500 of 4:51 and 800 of 2:17. However, in addition to the slew of PR's, the program also gave me a chronic back injury ... at age 17. Now, when I run, walk, or sit for too long, my SI join on my lower right side inflames, causing severe spasms and pain in my lower back. Additionally, I was constantly exhausted, underweight, and I quickly began to resent everything about the sport. While my coach's short-sighted views did land me an XC time I have never been able to beat, I have been left with an inability to enjoy running the way in which I see many other runners do.
Despite feeling physically and mentally burned out, I went on to run for a decent DI university. I was actually pretty excited to move to a new program and work with a new coach. I saw running in college as a place to start over. Fortunately it proved to be just that. Working with a coach who finally listened to me when I had problems, believed in tapering, and kept my mileage below 40 miles a week, I managed to PR in three of my favorite mid-distance events: a 4:43 1500, 2:58 in the 1000, and 2:14 in the 800. While I never hit my 18:05 PR in cross country, I ran consistent XC times in the high 18's and low 19's and several miles below 5:15. I discovered an appreciation for being fast and fit, but still lacked a heartfelt desire to run.
This brings us to the present.
Two and a half years after the end of my college career, I've struggled to maintain my desired fitness. While I still love the idea of being fast, I haven't been able to keep up with the training. I try to run and be consistent but end up getting frustrated/bored/tired/sore and quit before I get any quality runs under my belt. My mileage has fallen to a mere 10-15 miles a week, on average, and my pace has risen to 9:00/mile trot. Thinking it'll motivate me, I'll hop in a local 5K every so often only to find myself continually disappointed with the results. I haven't run sub-22:00 since the Fall of 2006 and ran the slowest 5K of my life in the Fall of 2007 (26:59). I've tried joining a running club and working with an online coach but neither were able to pull me out of my training rut.
So now I'm trying a blog. I figure if I put this out there to friends, family, and other fellow runners, maybe I'll feel more accountable when I don't train. Or perhaps the encouragement I hope to receive will be enough to get me out the door. Here, I'll hopefully have the opportunity to ramble about frustrations and brag about accomplishments and to receive feedback on both. Hopefully the start of this blog is the start of an overdue, successful, post-collegiate career.
