run camp – day 1

Yesterday was my first day of run camp.  I’ve been both dreading and looking forward to my first day.  Run camp officially started last weekend but since I was doing the Charlevoix 1/2,  yesterday was my day.

My alarm went off at 6 am and I hit snooze until 6:08 and then laid there until 6:11 am.  I have some strong support for this venture and I didn’t want to disappoint them.  Nevertheless, I absolutely seriously considered not going and here are my reasons:

1.  What if no one likes me?!  My social anxiety was in high gear.  I didn’t exactly know where to go from the parking garage, I was on my own and I simply felt out of place.  I know I’m a real runner, however, I was certainly intimidated.  I hate feeling lost.  I found my way though and people did talk to me!

2.  The requirement was you had to be able to run at least 4 miles.  In my mind, this meant we would start at 4 miles.  Uh… no… on the docket  were 7 miles and this was the low intensity schedule.  I could run the 4 without walking but after that it would be a crap shoot.  I was taken by surprise by this.  The training plan isn’t fooling around.  I talked to a few people after the run and some were saying they didn’t feel they could keep up with the aggressive requirements.  At least I wasn’t the only one feeling this way.

3.  What if I was too slow?!  I was very worried about lagging behind.  My pace group is the 11:30-12 min and I figured this would be the best fit for me.  It would have been had my pace leaders not kicked us off with under 11 min miles!  I’m not exaggerating – mile 3 was 10:57.  While I was pleased I could hit this (especially in the stifling humidity) I knew this was going to haunt me on my way back.  And it did.  I had to walk a few times because I was beat.  Probably mostly in my head.  I told one of my pace leaders that I was just too slow and she said, “well, we are hustling a bit”.  I’m hoping we adjust a bit next week.

4.  Marathon training has officially started.  This might be one of the scariest reasons of all.

this was essentially how I felt when i finished

So, I will go back next weekend.  8 miles are up for grabs and I’m determined not to let it beat me.  The heat and humidity aren’t going to stop anytime soon so I need to dress accordingly and accept it.  There is also a track workout (insert some nervousness) on Tuesday and I’ll follow the weekly mileage requirements.

Right now, I don’t want to disappoint my “cheerleaders”.  In a couple of weeks I know this will shift to not wanting to disappoint myself.  Here I go!