#twomilesuck

Outside of my happy little Crossfit bubble, I have set some other goals for myself; the largest one being to run an International half marathon this fall. For those who have been following this blog for any amount of time or those that know my in real life, I will swear up and down all day long that I hate running. And this goal race is coming up pretty quickly.

Over the past five weeks, I have been running with a Crossfit Endurance class once a week on Saturday mornings (with the exception of the Dirty Girl Mud Run weekend). And Coach Kate, a BQ, top-10 Detroit Marathon finisher, and National Championships in USAT triathlon qualifier, has turned my hatred of running into a mild dislike. Upgrade. 😉

Who would have thought that once you focus on running form and efficiency, rather than miles or time, that you can actually start to perform better? Between proper running form and the increased physical and mental endurance that Crossfit has given me, I almost have been looking forward to my weekly runs.

Even though I had joined a local running club with daily runs available during my lunch break, running without any instruction was not making me any better, and  was not convinced the $80 additional running class available was going to be helpful. My Saturday morning classes include a proper warm-up, plus each class we are videoed to find inefficiencies in our form that could lead to injuries. In five weeks, I have learned to run more comfortably, stopped over-striding and running on my toes, and started running near 180bpm.

Finish-line photo from the one and only time I ran 6 miles; was super proud of this moment but can now point out about 5 things wrong with this picture.

But no matter how much progress I am making in running form and efficiencies, and even consistently running distances that I struggled with before, I still have what I call the “#twomilesuck.” No matter what I do, the first two miles are miserable, uncomfortable, and the thoughts in my mind usually go like this:

Why am I doing this?

How are you ever going to run 13.1 miles?

Don’t you remember you ran 6.2 miles?!

Just make it past 2 miles; you’ll feel better.

It’s probably not too late to switch to the 5k.

You can run 6 miles; you can make it 2 miles.

Why does this suck so much?

You do Crossfit. You can do anything.

Breathe.

Pretty much every time. And then I pass two miles.. and everything is better. My cadence matches the metronome. My head, shoulders, hips, ankles, all seem to be in alignment and everything becomes easier. But the mental path to that point is awful!

A fellow Crossfitter posted this on her wall the other day; absolutely relevant to my mental issues with running!

Saturday’s run was a bit rough, as I had some issues with my calves from non-running related things at Crossfit. I’m not sure what actually did it; perhaps high box jumps on Tuesday, or “Grace” on Wednesday, or that I did 6 days in a row with no rest. Even with Thursday and Friday as rest days, the calves were still unhappy on Saturday morning, but I didn’t want to miss the run.

The splits from my past two pavement runs are below, in which we ran 20 minutes out and turned around and came back (same course each time).

July 6: 3.4 miles
1 mi 11:32
2 mi 12:12
3 mi 10:14
4 mi 9:20

July 20: 3.1 miles
1 mi 11:36
2 mi 13:14 (stopped to stretch)
3 mi 9:57
4 mi 10:04

It is a bit hilly in the middle, but I am amazed how my pace changes towards the end, and excited to see how I continue to progress.

I know there are still people who say there is no point in running if I hate it, but since running is just as much of a mental battle than a physical one, I am looking forward to making peace with it.

Your turn..
How do you get past the #twomilesuck?
Will the #twomilesuck every go away?
Do you prefer running alone or in a group?