I still love cartoons.
And not just the kind of cartoons that are written for adults like Futurama and The Simpsons (both of which are awesome, too), but also the cartoon movies that are made for kids but often contain elements designed to keep the adults happy, too.
As it happened, I had a bit of a cartoon marathon yesterday. In our effort to clear out our DVR before moving day (when we move to a home that does not get AT&T U-Verse), we're doing our best to watch all the movies that are currently stored on the DVR drive. Yesterday, this meant we got to watch Tangled and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, both of which were thoroughly enjoyable. Having exhausted our recorded options, we turned on live television, and what did we find? Kung Fu Panda. Yes.
It's absurd how much I enjoy this movie. In fact, it is one of the few movies that I have ever seen more than once in the theater. And I didn't realize it until I woke up this morning, but I never needed to see the movie more than I did yesterday.
You see, I've been, well, down for a while now. The reason is that I've severely overcommitted myself, and I feel like everything is suffering as a result. In reality, I'm still getting everything done, but I spend so much time worried about whether or not I'm going to get it done that it always ends up coming down to the last second. If I could plan ahead more accurately, I could be far more efficient about everything, and it probably would not be such a big problem. The only real issue, naturally, is that I'm so far behind at this point that planning would take more time than I have.
All of this was going through my head as I went to bed to the soft rumblings of ACL bass on Saturday night. When my alarm went off at 6:00 on Sunday morning, I did manage to get out of bed, and even convinced myself to get dressed, but I just hurt. I was worried about time management and physical exertion and a million other things, and after 30 minutes of sitting around trying to convince myself to get out the door, I gave up and went back to bed. Something in my brain had just snapped, and I did not want to work anymore. I planned to do the miles Monday morning, and enjoyed what I could of the next few hours I spent asleep.
Then, I read an article in Runner's World about overtraining, and was surprised to find a description of my life in print:
"Early signs of overtraining include loss of energy and frequent fatigue. A runner's legs also might feel heavy and tired, even after a day off. Anxiety and irritability are other indicators. And at the extreme - but not uncommon - end, a runner who blasts through all the warning signals may wind up sick or even depressed." - October issue, page 35
So that was it. I've been overtraining. I can't say I'm surprised to find this out, with the huge number of miles that I've put in over the last few months, but I was shocked to find out how badly it was affecting my mental health. I decided, after much deliberation, that my best option was simply to scrap the 12 miles, give the run up as lost, and start fresh with the new week of training.
As it happens, I've actually run more than the prescribed miles most weeks, and I was planning to run an extra two miles this Sunday to make my long run 22 instead of 20. If I do this and manage to run a mere .54 miles extra over the course of the next few weeks, then the 12 miles that I missed on Sunday will be made up, and I've still run (eventually) every mile included in my training schedule. Yet even if that wasn't the case, I would still be happy with my decision.
And I think that happiness came through in my dreams last night. Much like Po dreams of being a Kung Fu master, I had a running dream last night, something that hasn't happened since high school. I was finishing a 5K on the course where I ran my personal best in high school, and I had completed it in a new fastest time ever. And even though I didn't win the race (someone out-sprinted me in the end), I remember feeling so happy and proud at the end that, upon waking, I knew I had to run this morning.
And so I did.
Tuesday's Run:
65 Degrees / Dark
5.05 Miles
35 Minutes, 9 Seconds
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