Terrible runner

[liv]

This was going to be a celebratory post, because I did something I'm pleased about: I restarted regular running after a two year gap. But it's going kind of badly, and I want to whine about this.

The motivation was that my partners' 9yo wanted to take part in a 'virtual race' with a Harry Potter theme. She planned with her parents to target this weekend's local Parkrun. I kind of wanted to join in, but I wasn't sure I'd be up to it, partly because I'm really slow and ineffective at running just in general, and partly because I'm quite out of shape. So I decided that I'd spend a month training, three runs a week, and see if I felt up to the Parkrun.

Now, I know that Parkrun deliberately doesn't set a minimum standard; they're fine with slow runners, and they're fine with a mixture of running and walking. But I wanted to feel confident that I could definitely complete 5K in a time round about the usual slowest time for my local meet before I committed to actually joining in an activity with the general public.

My training was loosely based on the middle section of C25K. I didn't have time, in a month, to go through the whole programme, and I know that running three times a week improves my fitness markedly whereas any less than that is really slow to make a difference. So I started with 30 minutes in intervals of alternating 5 minutes running (well, stumble-jogging) and 5 minutes walking. And I rotated around things like adding extra intervals, making the intervals a bit longer, and making a deliberate effort to go faster (thanks to green_knight who recommended that sort of approach years ago.) By the end of month, I'd succeeded in running 12 times and not skipped any practices. I'd done three training runs where I completed 5K in N+1 minutes (N was my 'slowest reasonable Parkrun' target.) I was actually running in the running intervals, and power-walking for at least part of the recovery intervals, and I felt basically ready. And definitely, definitely fitter than a month ago.

I was pretty excited about the run yesterday, my first time at a public, officially timed 5K event (I meant to try Parkrun years ago, but never got round to it.) Also quite nervous; I had the most elaborate anxiety dreams about it, which is really daft, but there you go. Parkrun rules say kids need to be within arm's length of an adult, so 9yo decided to run alongside me rather than either of her parents. Conditions were great, cool and dry, and the organizers were calling it 'PB conditions'. I hadn't quite realized how huge the Parkrun near me is, they had nearly 600 participants!

What actually happened was that it was a dreadful, miserable ordeal. The track is a sort of figure-of-eight shape, where you run a small loop once and then the bigger loop twice. I started at the back of the pack with the kid, and we did all right for the first 5-10 minutes. But then we somehow took a wrong turn at the waist of the 8, partly I think because the fastest runners were already lapping us by then. A nice marshal found us when we crossed the correct route again, and put us back in the right direction. But by then we were behind the official tail volunteer. We managed to catch up with her and let her know we had gone wrong and had only just completed our first lap, and she dropped behind us, so that was ok.

I was running 5 minute intervals with 5 minute walking breaks. I timed them using the app Intervaly which just beeps at you at pre-set times, because I didn't want to disturb the other runners with the detailed audio feedback from my usual running app, Runkeeper. I'm not quite sure what went wrong but I didn't always hear the beeps. Anyway, although I'd been doing 5 minute intervals in training absolutely fine, in Parkrun I was finding them exhausting and could barely drag myself to keep going through 5 minutes. Which of course was absolutely no fun for a child running with me, but we were too far behind her other adults for her to switch to a different chaperone.

Anyway, we were quite a way behind the next slowest runner, and Parkrun is very emphatic that that doesn't matter, it's fine to be slow, and almost everybody who passed (lapped) us called out encouragement. But I felt a bit awful about making all the volunteers wait for us. Mainly I felt awful about how this run which I though I was confident I could complete was somehow right at the limit of what I could do. I just barely stumbled over the finish line and got a time of N+8 minutes; some of the extra was due to taking the wrong turn I think, but some of it was just because I was finding it so much harder than in training.

And then I collapsed, exhausted and weepy. And of course all my lovely partners and even the poor kid were absolutely wonderful about comforting me and getting sugar into me and reassuring me that it wasn't a problem that I'd been slower than I expected. Which sort of made me feel worse because the point had been to join them for a fun activity, not to try to complete a feat of endurance I could barely manage. I went home and broke down in absolute hysterics. Just couldn't stop sobbing and shaking for an hour, and even after I recovered partially I would fall apart again every time I had a minor setback. It's not that unusual that when you push yourself to your physical limits you end up emotionally labile, but I feel really silly the triggering ordeal was run-walking 5 km in a time slower than the numbers people always quote to tell you it doesn't matter if you're slow, slower than a decent walking pace really.

I think the answer is that I was over-optimistic in my judgement that I'd done enough training. I probably shouldn't try Parkrun again until I can do 5K in 5 minute intervals easily (not too worried about the speed, given Parkrun's serious commitment to inclusivity). But part of me is thinking, running is just not for me, I'm so unreasonably terrible at it. I keep on seeing reassurance that it doesn't matter if you can only do 5K, or if you can only manage a pace of N/5 minutes per km, you're still, as the kids say, valid. But after a month of fairly serious training, I can't manage that pace, and I can't reliably complete 5K or at least not without being exhausted to an unreasonable level. I don't know what else to do instead, though; I haven't yet found any other form of exercise that improves my fitness to the extent running does, and it also has the huge advantage that I can just put on a pair of trainers and do a workout, I don't have to be in a particular place at a particular time or coordinate with other people or whatever.

And, well, I feel particularly wormish for letting down an excited kid doing her first formal 'race'.

Where do I go from here? Yes, I am seeking advice. I might be prickly about emotional comfort, because part of what is making me feel so terrible about this is feeling like other people have to do emotional labour to support me in achieving something that should be relatively easy.

Comments

[sonia]

Sorry to hear it turned out to be an ordeal! It does sound to me like you trained "enough" to expect to have a good time.

Did you pay a lot of attention to water and food the day before and during the run? Also electrolytes, doesn't have to be gatorade, it can be orange juice with a little salt in. Sounds to me like you were inadequately fueled in some way on the day of the run. "Eat before you're hungry, drink before you're thirsty."

I was just chatting with a friend (as we biked up a hill) that figuring out what one's body needs to keep going is a serious part of the challenge with exercise, and takes a while to get right. It does feel terrible when the body runs out of fuel.

[feanelwa]

Ah! Yes! If you're exercising in the morning, have a big carby dinner the night before, so you have a cushion of backup glycogen and don't hit the wall so hard.

[hatam_soferet]

Dear badger! Hug hug hug.

I think that getting lost is actually very draining, and getting lost at speed, when you have to be making decisions and coping, but FAST, more so. Add in feeling responsible for the little one and you weren't just running with your own new emotional load because new race, you were carrying a great big extra load as well because lost and little.

[angelofthenorth]

yes, this.

I'd try a simpler route before giving up, I think.

[flippac]

Yeah. It's amazing just how much the brain can drain the rest of the body, and then everything cascades.

[ursula]

I know you have asthma; is it triggered by exercise? Or by seasonal allergies?

[wychwood]

I feel like, if you did 5K within roughly your target time-range multiple times in training, but the race was extremely different, that it's more likely that something specific went wrong on the day (perhaps with hydration or food, as sonia suggests) than that you are actually "unreasonably terrible" at it. You have three data points that say you can do this, and one that says you can't under different experimental conditions; I don't think that's conclusive yet! If you feel you can keep trying, I think it would be worth doing another few weeks of training (and see if your times / comfort level improve) and maybe try again on another timed race in a month or two?

It does suck though, especially when a) you were excited about it and b) you were worried about letting your companion down.

[feanelwa]

Ahh, that is familiar to me. When I get flustered like when you got lost, or if a little brat pulls out of an eddy and makes me nearly capsize, I stop being able to perform like in practice because it doesn't feel safe anymore to follow the performance ruleset, when I have this "everything is horrible and disaster might happen soon" backup ruleset that says the opposite.

Additionally you probably ran extra distance because of getting lost and didn't strictly do 5 minute intervals because of not hearing the beeps. (Not hearing things is also a massive function of stress/anxiety!)

Anyway actual advice:
-Study the map in detail before you do a new route where there are people; possibly walk the route on an earlier day so you don't have to think about where you're going as well as thinking about the actual running.
-To go faster, don't go too much faster - when you feel pressure to go faster you go further above the comfortable speed than when you're doing it on your own, which knackers you quicker and makes it harder to do it the whole time.
-Don't run with a kid! There are few bigger pressures than having to set a cheerful example to somebody the world expects to be physically weaker than you. (Kids are not anyway - they have a crazy strength-to-weight ratio.) And the vast majority of your bad exercise experiences were when you were surrounded by kids, as a kid yourself. Even if this particular kid is an excellent person, it's still fetching up those memories to lurk in the shadows at you.

Further: "only 5K" - there is no "only" when your lungs have spent your whole life trying to kill you!

And this: "But part of me is thinking, running is just not for me, I'm so unreasonably terrible at it,"
That part of you is buying into all the school PE bollocks that if you're not instantly "naturally talented" at something you're not allowed to do it. Wank wank wank wank wank. That's like if only rich people were allowed bank accounts, or only people who could read before they were 4 were allowed books. Everybody has a body. Everybody is allowed to exercise. 90% of PE teachers deserve a punch in the face for teaching the opposite.

[liv]

Thank you, this is a really helpful and perceptive comment. You're absolutely right about lurking memories of horrible children; Judith is jussssst getting to the age I was when I had friends rather than bullies and tormentors (and a lot of the bullying was about how slow I was at running.) I try not to let that affect me too much, because for one thing it's ridiculous for an adult to be afraid of under 8s, and also it's horribly unfair to associate really nice children with horrible bullies just because they have a vague physical resemblance.

You're also right about getting flustered and running extra distance. And definitely definitely right that I can still exercise even if I'm terrible at running. The question is whether I can reasonably run with other people if I'm slower than basically everybody. I think it's somewhat true that my lungs work less well than an average person's, but they've only really tried to kill me about three times in over 30 years. Still, it's good to regard the lung stuff as a real physical limitation, not a matter of willpower.

Good advice about walking the route and not trying to go much faster than a comfortable speed.

Anyway, thank you, I really appreciate your comment.

[kht]

It's never easy (that's part of the reason why I like running).

Remember that couch-to-5k is supposed to take 9 weeks, and your training was half that time. I think running consistently 3x per week on your own is an achievement by itself.

Maybe consider joining a beginners' group?

[flippac]

Seconded, aside from the part about liking running.

I can't see myself pulling off Cto5K without giving up on just about everything else short of keeping myself fed for those 9 weeks at the moment. A two-word sentence about "should" comes to mind?

[ewt]

Thoughts:
-4 weeks isn't nearly long enough for consistent results
-you didn't train on the route you ran
-air quality has been iffy for a bit (I'm suffering more than usual and my asthma is not bad at all)
-kid got an interesting lesson in what it sometimes looks like to finish something anyway because, dammit, you said you would

I have had good improvements in my walking mobility from using couch to 5k but alternating between walking at a "comfortable" and "fast" pace. Walking mobility may not be the thing you are trying to optimise; I think it's worth starting over with couch to 5k and running and doing the whole 9 week thing.

More tomorrow if I think of it, gotta sleep now.

[ewt]

Further thoughts:

As others have pointed out, getting lost and not hearing beeps mean you probably did a lot more than 5k, and a lot more than 5-minute intervals.

I don't know if the time of day matters for you. For me, for things like playing an instrument, if I want to perform well in the morning, I need to practice in the morning. If your body is used to running sometimes in the evenings then it could be a pretty big shock to do it before lunch, all of a sudden.

It sounds like this was a major emotional stress. Given that, it may not be the best time to decide to give up on running. My instinct is that keeping at it for a while longer (maybe another month or two?) and seeing if you get to a point you're happier with is worthwhile. You can, of course, still quit then, but you might quit without your final experience being so hard.

That said, I think you have successfully proven that you can take two years off from running and come back to it. If you decide to take some more time off to explore something else, it's not like you're throwing away all chances at ever running again. There's nothing wrong with saying "hey, maybe this isn't for me any more, but I gotta do *something*" and spending some time seriously trying out other options. I think we're all (I mean, those of us commenting with "don't give up!" kind of comments) just reluctant to see you do that over what, from the outside, looks like one bad experience that was more to do with non-running aspects of preparation affecting your performance than anything else.

There isn't much that can beat running in terms of convenience, but you could try six other things for a month each and see if you find something you like more. Options for aerobic activity include jumping rope, cycling (fast enough to get your heart rate up), swimming, some of the more exercise-intense dance forms; for general fitness you could also try strength training, Pilates, western fitness yoga. And maybe your ideal routine is some combination: a long brisk walk one day a week, a swim on another, and lifting heavy things on another.

[rmc28]

I want to join in the reassurances that you *did* manage to run 12 times in 4 weeks, and you *did* have 3 data points that you were hitting roughly your target pace and tbh I think getting lost and being responsible for a small child are more than enough explanation for doing worse.

(Also, small child has lots of other chances for a race, and the first one doesn't have to be definitive of the experience thereafter, and that's a good life lesson for all children to learn anyway. You haven't ruined her life experience of running races.)

I am pretty sure that whatever your current pace is, you're faster than me! And I refuse to feel like running isn't for me. Like you say, it has the two huge advantages that you can do it whenever you can put on trainers and find time, and that it actually improves your fitness in a rapid way. I've never done Parkrun and I've not done much organised running, but I got a hell of a lot out of running by myself, which is why I am so excited to be inching my way back to doing so again. I will never be a fast runner, and there's a certain freedom in accepting I'll always be one of the slowest in any given event, so there's just no point to getting competitive about it with anyone but myself. (And in fact, right now I'm being extra un-competitive, because I'm doing c25k with my child, and I don't want to spoil his enjoyment of it by making it a competitition rather than a thing we do together.)

[feanelwa]

Ah! You said the rest of what I was thinking about small child, but couldn't find the words for!

[malnpudl]

All I can offer is my own story, for what it may be worth.

In my mid-twenties I was as healthy and fit as ever in my life -- which is to say, thoroughly healthy and moderately fit, and within 15 lbs of what the world seemed to think I should weigh. I have never, ever been remotely athletic; my body is not gifted in those ways in any fashion.

Because it was the early 80s and it was fashionable, I started jogging (with a side of Jazzercize). It took me a full year to work up to my one and only 5K, which I finished last with an 11.5-minute-per-mile average speed -- blazing fast for me (at times my dog was walking while I jogged during the uphill portions).

I loved it. It felt wonderful. I was never any good at it. I was always dead slow. And as long as I didn't ever, ever, EVER compare myself to anyone else, I loved it.

Not sure if any of that will resonate with you in any way, but there 'tis.

You have all my sympathy for the unhappy Parkrun, and best thoughts for finding what works for you.

[siderea]

You missed your transition prompts? I don't think you are appreciating how catastrophic an error that is. If your plan – what you had trained to, what you expected yourself to be able to do – was five minute intervals, and you, on race day, were running more than five minute intervals – and, OMG, I am imagining you missing one entirely and running for ten minutes – I'LL BET you were devastatedly exhausted.

There's an expression in English, "It's a marathon not a sprint", precisely based on the phenomenon that if a runner wants to do what is for them a long distance, they cannot treat it as a short distance, because they will wipe themselves out and never finish.

Which it sure sounds like you accidentally did.

If you went only one minute over on an early running interval, that was an additional 20% as long! That's way beyond your training. I'm not surprised that you found yourself winded and wobbly on successive intervals.

Where do you go from here? The Parkrun track. Take your app and you down there alone, with your beeps nice and loud. Find out what it's like to run that route when you keep to your training/plan. I think you'll find it's much, much easier.

[jack]

*hugs* *hugs* *hugs* All of the sympathy. I wrote really quite a long post and then I decided you'd heard all my opinion already and it didn't help to say it again, just, I think you were unlucky that a whole bunch of things went wrong at once, I don't think you should translate that into expecting running to be like -- if you'd rather try something else instead, I think that'd be entirely reasonable, but I don't think you *need* to.

Practical steps, if you try parkrun again, try at least one without responsibility for Judith as well, listen to any of the health advice above if it seems like it might be helpful, probably see how your regular runs go and if (I assume) they're not dire like that that's a positive sign.

[jack]

And I wish you could stop feeling guilty for things that aren't a problem, but I don't think I can fix that, and I'm sorry that you have to put up with me doing that much more often, I wish I could stop myself doing it too :(

[shreena]

I'm sorry you had a tough parkrun. I've never even got to one!

All I have to offer is some things that worked for me, in case they work for you:

I just don't get on with organised running groups/races/etc - I am not motivated by running with others. I've never even tried one because I just know it's not for me. It took me ages to realise - following horrible experiences at school - that I just don't like exercising in a competitive way, even if it's really gentle and encouraging as an atmosphere like Park run.

What I do like is running with a purpose - so what has worked best for me is running home from work. It fits in my day, doesn't take up much extra time than commuting generally and I feel like I've accomplished something genuinely useful: getting home from work!

I also just don't enjoy exercise - so the trick for me is (as above) to integrate it into my life as much as possible and also to pair it with something I do enjoy. So, I listen to podcasts that I really enjoy while running which takes my mind of it.

[hilarita]

If you are still stressed by the idea of Parkrun in a week or so, then... don't do Parkrun, or any communal running thing at all! If running is stressing you out after this, then don't run. I do interval training in the privacy of my own home, (and weights, and general work outs, but interval training gives me the fitness benefits in the same sort of dimension as running would, if I didn't hate it). I prance like a hyperactive hamster, and it's good for my health, isn't outdoors with all that pesky pollen and pollution, and I don't have to worry about trying to do sport *and* people at the same time.

While you might think that the equation is sport + people I love == OK, it's possible that what you've actually got is (sport + people I love) * public == OMG no. That's OK. One of the great things about adulthood is that you're allowed to do stuff on your own that they forced you to do in groups at school with great trauma (whether that's maths, or reading books, or PE), even if it's stuff that traditionally you might do with other people. You may have fallen over something that's a hard limit for yourself - so it's worth thinking about whether that's what's happened, or whether it's more easily fixable stuff.

Also, I find environmental factors really, really affect my breathing - most days, I walk to work at about 3.5mph for 0.9 miles, and go up the flight of stairs to my office, and I'm completely fine. There are plenty of days when the humidity is high, or the pollen is high, or the pollution is high, or it's cold, or it's a combination of all that, that I get to the top of the stairs and my lungs are waving a flag of surrender. That's not about me "not being prepared" - that's just how it is. (And I can tell this, by the fact that very often the very next day I can do that just fine.)

I've also worked at giving myself permission to deal with the fact that some workouts will be much worse than others, because of factors beyond my control. (Or not beyond my control - maybe I just shouldn't have had the stupid hangover ;) )

Also, you are allowed to need emotional labour - sport and people together, particularly for people who had traumatic school sports experience, is hard. It's OK to need some TLC.

[green_knight]

Also, I find environmental factors really, really affect my breathing

Solidarity fist bump. Only I'm fat and it took me _decades_ to work out that no, I'm not unfit, I'm just not getting enough air. (I have another condition that affects my fitness at times, which doesn't make things easier.) I'm now much better at monitoring conditions, and my 'fitness levels' can fluctuate much more inside a week than possible, so eventually I stopped seeing 'being out of breath' as a personal failure.

[hilarita]

I don't think I'd have spotted it if I wasn't doing this *literally every weekday*, so that I can have really, really obvious comparisons...

[green_knight]

That sounds like a very tough experience all around: getting lost, trying to look out for someone else, being in the middle of masses of runners (most of whom overtake you), being in competition mode, even if you're only aiming for 'personal best'... wow. That's A. Lot.

Whether you've done enough training or not depends on your running fitness and general fitness - next time, I'd allow another month.

There are a number of things you can do to stack the deck in your favour; one of them is training more, and being comfortable _in training_ with something like 4 mins walk/6 mins run, as well as going for 6k on your 5/5 schedule - competitions are extra tough, mentally at least, so at entry level, you should do less in a competition than you do in training.

The other is strategy: now that you know you get a bit flustered and might miss your clues and go off course, next time you can scout the course, and memorise where your walk/run markers are: run from here to the cafe, then walk past the aviary, then run to the tennis court, then walk... and even if you miss a ping on the day, you'll know what to do.

Last but not least, let go of the 'should' and listen to your body. If you struggle with a run segment, walk. Don't push yourself into the zone where you are completely exhausted, it's also the zone where injuries become much more likely, so let go of your pride and what you think you 'should' be able to do, and move down a gear. Walk. Amble, if you have to, regain your breath, rehydrate, then ease back into it. You can't sprint over the finish line, but not one moment earlier.

I think you've done a great job - things didn't go to plan, but that's life, and while it's of course sad for the 9yo, it's also a valuable experience. There'll be other runs. See it as a chance for you to model how to behave in adversity: back off when needed, but don't throw in the towel yet. If you decide to give up on running regularly later, that's always a decision you can make, but just because you misjudged one thing (and ran into awful bad luck) doesn't mean you should never run again.

As a person who will never run 5K, I salute you. (I can swim a mile and be less out of breath than after a minute's jog. Go figure.)

[silveradept]

From the sounds of things, you're attributing to yourself what are things that might have been entirely out of your control. It seems reasonable to you that they were in your control, but they may not have been at all.

You still succeeded at doing the race part, and in looking after the small child. Those are things that you can be proud of.

From here, perhaps more training if you want to do it and then giving it another go later on to see if you are going to be a person that does great by yourself and not as well in groups.

[ghoti_mhic_uait]

OK, so; your time was basically the same as mine, despite the fact that you got lost, so in effect, you were faster than me, and I was pleased with my time. I know you said the next slowest runner was quite a way ahead, but when we got to the end, one of you was in front and the other behind me. J was really pleased with how you did. She didn't love how upset you were, obviously, but then, nobody was.

I do think it was a mistake to not just keep you with me for the first lap, and if we do it again that's what we should do, although for that to work, you'll have to make peace with doing it slower than your ideal. There is normally both a marshall and a sign at the point where you got lost, so I think the fact that they were both missing is the thing that went wrong.

[ceb]

Is it where you normally train? I would be willing to bet quite a lot of money that unfamiliar ground makes things harder work (physically and mentally) and slower.

[wildeabandon]

I meant to comment on this in a more timely manner, so sorry for leaving it so late. It looks as though you've had lots of helpful comments and I agree with a lot of what's been said, but one thing that I wanted to observe is that even though I generally seem to enjoy running more than you, I find it really difficult to get back into a good frame of mind for it when something has gone wrong, and will quite often give up and go home if, say, my headphones stop working, or I realised that I forgot to change from glasses to contacts, or I've taken a wrong turn that actually only adds a tiny bit of distance - so I'm really impressed that you kept going through all that.