The Smell of Failure

About a month ago I experienced three straight weeks of different illnesses that kept me from training.  The middle week was a kidney stone that needed to be blasted.  That was accomplished on a Monday evening under general anesthesia but my doctor cleared me to run the Middle Half-Marathon that Saturday.  It was a pretty miserable run and I feared that my quest to run the St. Jude's Full Marathon was over.  I hadn't felt good in weeks and I had missed several long training runs with my group.

Usually I don't run on Mondays - it's a short "recovery" run and my old knees can use a break from the pounding.  Last Monday I decided to run three miles at lunch to shake out the cobwebs.  As I was getting my running gear out of my bag I got a whiff of a very familiar smell.  In case you're going there, my clothes were clean!  The smell is the unmistakable scent of nylon and spandex - it's not a bad smell but it always smells.  They say that one of the biggest memory triggers is smell and I have to agree.  My mind immediately took me to my training runs.  Not only do our long training runs typically happen on the same course but my mid-week runs are usually in the same place as well and I wouldn't call many of them successful.

The thought of another run in the same place actually made me feel a little sick.  I decided to find somewhere else to run.  I thought of the trail at David Lipscomb but didn't want to run in circles.  I thought about Crieve Hall but I hadn't mapped anything out.  Finally it dawned on me to go to Radnor.  The road is closed to vehicles and you can get three miles in easily.  I only checked my watch to make sure that I ran as far as I needed to and didn't worry about time.  When I was finished I had paced out much faster than I had been running.

A beautiful day and a beautiful place and it was just what I needed!

The next day I mapped out a 6 mile run in Crieve Hall and, although the larger streets aren't very runner friendly, it was good to be in my old stomping grounds and remember who lived in which house.  Again, a really good run at a good pace.

On Thursday, I had a 10 mile run planned and I went back to Crockett - the place of recent bad memories.  I reversed my regular route so that the scenery would at least look different.  The temperature was dropping and it was pretty windy but that all encouraged me to run well.

Saturday was my first long run in a while and at 18 miles would be my longest run ever.  It was 27 degrees at 6am when we started.  The first 13 were really good.  The next 3 were OK and the final 2 were hard, but I did it!  

Hopefully I've replaced some bad memories with good ones and I know that I'm encouraged and excited about running my first full marathon.

Finally, I'm still a little short on my VIP potty goal.  Here's the link to my fundraising page; won't you consider donating to St. Jude's?

Steve's St. Jude's Fundraising Page