It's a good lesson that even those of us who consider ourselves great time jugglers can blow it. A little over-scheduling leads to a calendar with no flexibility, and the the next thing you know, you're way off your training plan, sick a few days before the race, and exhausted before the race even begins. It's dreadful how easily it can creep up on you:
I start the year, and my calendar is totally blank. I'm committing to TRT100! Look at all that time to train! All that time to recover! I'm going to kill it!
Then the family vacations get slotted in, and in the Dunlap clan, July is a heavy month. By the time March rolled around, we had booked the first half of July to see family in Portland, Eugene, Santa Barbara, Tahoe, and more. But it's vacation, right?!? I'll have plenty of time to train! Lots of time to rest!!!
Well, not exactly. Family wants to see you (not see you run), the daily vacation schedule is stunningly full, kids get overwhelmed and don't sleep well (how many 4-hour sleep nights can Daddy do? 6, 7, 8...), lots of driving, lots more driving, and the few runs you can slot in are exhausted slogs.
Next, work kicks in. I work at a high growth company, and it never ceases to amaze me how much can get out of whack when you miss a few days. Miss a few weeks, and it can turn into mayhem. Next thing you know, every vacation day has a call or a few hours of emails, and you find yourself cutting vacation short to take a red eye flight back to work a 70-hour week. Oh crap, that means I'll have to red eye flight back and drive six hours just to make the starting line for the TRT100!
Then you get that tickle in your throat...that hack and sniffle that comes not from a virus, but from multiple days of pure exhaustion. It's the kind of cold you can't "tough out" and run for 24 hours anyway, for it quickly grows into a torturous, all-day-in-bed monster that can take out whole months of your season. Even downgrading to a shorter distance is a recipe for disaster. You gotta get healthy. You gotta DNS.
SHIT.
So all my best to the TRT100 runners with better planning skills, especially my Inside Trail Racing teammates Bob Shebest (defending champion, now eyeing that Master's CR), Victor Ballesteros (the envy of all Strava runners this summer), Chris Eide, and Brenda Blinn. Go get 'em!
I'll be watching you live and cheering from my bedside. ;-)
- SD
[Update - Team ITR killed it! Bob Shebest got a repeat win with a new CR of 17:38, Victor Ballesteros put his TRT demons to rest and got under 24 hours with a 23:28, Chris Eide was right behind him with a 24:28!]
Great post Scott! Totally get the juggling act, dropped out of VT50K last year for similar reasons.
ReplyDeleteSuch a bummer, but life happens no matter how much you plan. Get better soon!
ReplyDeleteDOH! SORRY... but look on the bright side... it's not a stress fracture or an overtraining strain that could keep you out for months!
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness Scott! I hope you feel better soon!!! It is nice however, to see that we're not as superhuman as we push ourselves to be. Just wanted to stop by to say that I'm enjoying this blog so much, and hoping that it will clear a few of the doldrums as you recover to hear a bit of goodness. :) I'll be a regular here!
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness Scott! I hope you feel better soon!!! It is nice however, to see that we're not as superhuman as we push ourselves to be. Just wanted to stop by to say that I'm enjoying this blog so much, and hoping that it will clear a few of the doldrums as you recover to hear a bit of goodness. :) I'll be a regular here!
ReplyDeleteYour post is amazing .It helped me a lot in my research. I appreciate your work. I will come here again to see new updates. Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteHi Scott -- I'm glad you wrote this and know that many people, myself included, can relate to being spread too thin and having to give up some goals. The last couple of years, you had incredible performances at races. These things go in cycles. Put your running in "maintenance mode," don't worry about blogging so regularly, focus on work and family, and have faith you'll get back to it and have the TRT (and other 100s) of your dreams in the years to come! I feel for you, though.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this post Scott. I've been struggling with some arch pain in my right foot, and this is impacting my training for a fall race. My wife is returning to the classroom today to begin preparing for the start of the school year. I suppose that it's an amazing feat that we as runners can even find the time to run (or so it seems) with all of the activities that fill our days.
ReplyDelete