Plateau

This has been a really rough running week for me. I ran 10 miles on Saturday at a much better pace than I've been able to sustain for that sort of distance in a long time (9:26 min/min). I finished, headed to Kati & Nate's for her birthday festivities and promptly made good use of their guest bathroom - the dreaded tummy troubles. I spent most of the rest of the day with a really upset stomach (without going into gory detail). I had an ok run on Tuesday (3 miles) and then another tummy rumbler (7 miles) on Wednesday. Finally, today I had a solid 4 mile run that felt good and didn't make me sick.

It's been mentally hard for me to get through this... especially with much longer miles looming ahead of me (15 miles this Saturday!). I've been told by several people that a lot of people training for marathons hit a plateau - a time when you just don't feel like running, every step hurts and you just plain feel yucky. I fell asleep on the sofa last night sometime between 7:30 and 8pm. I'm tired and I'm sore and that definitely doesn't motivate me to get up to run.

I had a great chat with my mom the other day about this... here's what is keeping me going. If a marathon was easy, everyone would be doing them. The whole accomplishment is to do something that is difficult, that shows the control you have over your body and that most other people don't do. It's said that ~500,000 people in the United States finished a marathon in 2011... that's less that one percent of the population.

That said, I did a little researching into the history of the marathon. Basically, way back in 490 BC, Greece was battling Persia and won. A messenger named Pheidippides was sent to Athens to announce the victory at Marathon - he ran for two days, declared "We have won" and dropped dead. Totally inspiring, especially considering what I've detailed above, isn't it?

Fortunately, I have some great friends at work who are avid runners and gave me some great advice. Apparently fiber before a run is not a runners friend. And, my favorite, just find a bush to poo in. I guess my wonky tummy is a more common thing than I thought.

I intend to spend a good part of this evening doing some research on foods to eat (and avoid). Fingers crossed that today's run was the turn in my plateau and that things start looking up again!