MCM Week 7: Anxious August

It’s the point in the training cycle when following the plan is basically a habit, but when new mental stimuli, such as seeing the never-ending political dystopia on national news and the terrible deaths and drownings on the local news seep into your brain like water during osmosis, it’s hard not to feel doom during doomscrolling. It was a tough training week, and looking back, the beginning of a tough training month.

Here's the plan breakout for Week 7:

·       Sunday – 10 miles Tempo: 2 mi WU, 6 mi @ MP, 2 mi CD

·       Monday – 6 miles Easy

·       Tuesday – 7 miles Speed: 1.5 mile WU, 4 x 1200 @ 10k pace w/ 400m jog, 1.5 mile CD

·       Wednesday – Cross-train

·       Thursday – 10 miles Tempo: 1.5 mi WU, 3 mi MP, 0.5 mi jog, 2 mi MP, 0.5 mi jog, 1 mi MP, 1.5 mi CD

·       Friday – 4 miles Easy

·       Saturday – 6 miles Easy

What actually happened:

·       Sunday – 12 miles Long

·       Monday – 6 miles Easy

·       Tuesday – 7 miles Speed: 1.5 mile WU, 4 x 1200 @ 10k pace w/ 400m jog, 1.5 mile CD

·       Wednesday – Heavy Lifting

·       Thursday – 10 miles Tempo: 1.5 mi WU, 3 mi MP, 0.5 mi jog, 2 mi MP, 0.5 mi jog, 1 mi MP, 1.5 mi CD

·       Friday – 4.10 miles Easy

·       Saturday – Beach Yoga

Dock in Hartshorne Park overlooking the Shrewsbury River

Although the plan called for a 10-miler tempo run, I mentally didn’t feel up for speed, but I challenged myself to tack on 2 more miles again like last week. I ran on Sandy Hook the previous day and needed different scenery and some hills, but I didn’t feel like driving to a county park because I was in the car so much on Friday and Saturday. I told myself that I would start my run on hills by heading toward Hartshorne on the paved roads and finish the rest of it on the Hook. I took the first mile nice and slow at sea level, climbed the big mile-long hill to get to the Hartshorne parking lot at the battery and adjusted my sneakers and hydration vest at the top. I took my time running the Battery Loop that had steep hills but was still completely covered in shade at this time of the morning, so I changed my goal to do half of the mileage in the park instead of just one loop.

The shade made a big difference in how I felt during the run, so after an additional loop around, I explored the other offshoots of the paved trail. I wasn’t going in the woods today without trail shoes, but there were still parts of this park that we never walked in previously, so I did a little bit of recon work for future long runs. I ran down one steep hill to the waterfront on the Shrewsbury River where there was a picturesque dock that I snapped on my phone. Stopping to take it messed up my momentum to get up the hill running, so I had to hike back up to the main trail, affecting my split times. On another offshoot I found a really creepy bunker opening that I did NOT stop to take any photos because the area felt haunted. After these offshoots, I ran the Battery Loop a few more times until my watch said I did 10 miles and I jogged the 2 miles home. My glute media and piriformis were on fire from keeping my hips level on those hills, but otherwise I felt strong. We got to spend the afternoon poolside and Mark’s family was in awe that I was walking around normally after a challenging run. I was appropriately tired, but happy to still be able to socialize. I had an extra helping of Greek gyros after all the calories I burned.

All of my clients were going to be on PTO or working at a different office on Monday, so I was able to do my recovery run at home when I would normally be commuting. I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to drive, so I was glad to sleep in an extra 20 minutes and run a relatively speedy recovery run on the flat Henry Hudson Trail. Working from home an extra day allowed me to focus on some new job responsibilities for managing AT&T’s fitness centers across the country and work on CEUs to keep my personal training certification up to date.

We had a fall preview with the weather on Tuesday morning. It was a bit chilly, which made perfect running conditions for me after this insane summer of heat. I messaged my usual client where to meet since I was starting earlier to get more miles in, but after taking the bike trail and returning to the field to do a few laps around he was a no-show again. With his age, I always worry that something bad happened and ran back to the office quickly only to get a message back that he’s just heading outside now, 45 minutes later than our standing appointment for the past year. I was really annoyed because I almost stayed out there longer to wait for him, but I had to be back for our monthly team meeting. I also would have preferred to run at home that day so I wouldn’t have to be a bag lady carrying my change of clothes, toiletries, and towels.

I could have run on Wednesday, but the plan called for cross-training and the air quality was really bad again. I lifted heavy and could tell that breathing felt a little off this day and it was good that I wasn’t pushing myself aerobically. Between the smoggy air, my tough training, the change in daylight hours, constant bad news shown on TV, the feeling that someone close was about to die, and clients switching schedules on me, it created some inner turmoil that I wasn’t aware was happening at the time. During a client session after lunch, I felt dizzy and off and had to do my own deep breathing for a few minutes before regaining equilibrium. It took a while for it to pass, and I drank more fluids and electrolytes for the rest of the day. I hoped it was an isolated incident related to the polluted air.

I had a lot of weird dreams but felt well-rested on Thursday. I had great energy for my 10-mile tempo run on the Henry Hudson Trail and looked forward to the massage I booked awhile back. It was warmer out again and I felt a bit off just before the massage, and when normally I feel relaxed immediately on the massage table with my normal therapist, this time it felt like my blood pressure was very prominent. It was hard to relax when whatever was stressing me out was manifesting in an anxious way instead of tight muscles. I felt drained that afternoon and couldn’t wait for bedtime.

I wanted to go to an ocean swim on Friday, but the conditions showed warnings of rip currents and a lot of people have been drowning in them on the Jersey Shore this summer. I thought I would ride my bike instead, but I couldn’t find my bike shorts. It’s not that I couldn’t ride without them, but I didn’t want saddle sores to affect the upcoming long runs I had to do. Chafing can ruin a workout. I decided an easy 4-miler would be fine. I felt weird again during the day, and tried to shake it off. Unfortunately, with the high heat that day and poor smoggy air, I ended up having a full-blown anxiety attack during the rodizio dinner for Mark’s birthday. I struggled to eat the delicious food, couldn’t drink water fast enough to stay hydrated, and birthday boy had to drive us home even though I planned to be DD. I felt awful that this was happening during the day I was most looking forward to this week for my favorite person. What didn’t help this anxiety attack was that we were stuck in traffic behind our local rescue squad’s ambulance, and my subconscious fear was that I would need CPR. Despite the close proximity of the ambulance, they wouldn’t know to help the car immediately behind them in the case of an emergency. It was almost like the physical symptoms triggered the thought spiral. The whole ordeal exhausted me, so I went to bed early.

I felt well-rested for Saturday and thought I’d play the day by ear. I went to beach yoga on Sandy Hook first and felt mentally calm, but physically buzzing so I ran 6 miles after to release my energy. I knew we’d be hanging out at a pool party later that day, so I was glad to have run that morning. I felt pretty good about the day until a kid that didn’t know how to swim slipped into the deep end and my lifeguard instincts kicked in. I was about to jump in the pool when the pool owner’s mother did with full clothes on to help him. He was ok and coughed a bit, but it didn’t seem to scare him. We put a rope where the deep end started and had the two kids stay in the shallow section with life vests, and I took it upon myself to be a lifeguard in the cold water. I reiterated to the mother to sign the sweet kids up for swimming lessons at her local YMCA as soon as possible as a precaution.

I was only about 3 miles shy of the planned amount for the week, but the mental energy of everything going on and unbreathable air exhausted me further. I hoped the dread and doom would subside, but little did I know it would be the start of what I now call “Anxious August”.