Day 107: Crushed

Well, my running self esteem is pretty much destroyed for the week. On Wednesday, I was hanging out with a couple of friends, and one of them was asking me about running and said maybe we could run together some time. She asked how fast I ran, and I said 9:30 - 11:30 depending on the distance and the day. She responded with "Oh. I run a lot faster than that. I could push you to make you go faster..." I know she meant well, but it's just like... I know I'm slow. I don't need it rubbed in. It doesn't help that she's way taller and has way longer legs than me to begin with. What am I supposed to do about that?

Then last night I checked in with Chris to see how his 14 miles went. I was so excited just to have finished, and then he texted back how great his run was... he was doing 9:15 miles, and his slowest was only at the very end and was only like 12:00. Apparently his run was fantastic. Which is great, I'm glad he had a good run, but mine was so much slower and so much worse, and I really didn't feel fantastic afterward. So now I feel like maybe I'm holding him back.

I don't know what to do to get faster. Losing weight is definitely not an option, and I only run with my Garmin, so there's not a bunch of equipment I can cut back on. I clearly can't do hill sprints since that's what caused my ITB to start hurting again. I guess I can try some other interval training on the track or something, but I'm not sure I want to sacrifice one of my weekday runs to the track. I need some sort of cross training or strength training that would help, or something else I can do on my runs to work on my speed. Until then I guess I'll just be depressed about my slowness. Gah.

Went to Bikram this morning. I have a love/hate relationship with that class. The first half of the class is so miserable... it's so hot and sweat is just pouring from everywhere, and it's so hard. But then by the last half I'm adjusted to the heat and I'm feeling really stretched out and tired, but in a good way. And then when it's over, I come out feeling great... stronger, more flexible, energized, less sore. So I guess suffering through the first half is worth it. I think once my 10 days are up, it will be good to take a little break though, so I don't get burnt out.

Despite a good yoga class, still pretty sore tonight from yesterday. Tomorrow's run should be interesting.