I was so psyched for today’s run. We really didn’t have any plans. So I made a plan: lunch/dinner in crockpot, clean house, run. And it would be all downhill from there.

I planned for a long, slow, easy run. I wasn’t intereted in speed at all, but I had a distance in mind. I really wanted another 5 miler. We took an easy run on Thursday, I took Friday off (yoga only), and was excited.

It stunk. Bad.

In the big scheme of things, not so much stink. Time is typical. I ran 3K.

But I am really disappointed. It was really hard. I almost always struggle for the first 5 minutes but then I hit my stride. But the usual initial struggle lasted the whole 23 minutes.

Problems? Legs were like lead. I felt like I was barely moving – like it was more of a glorified powerwalk than an actual run. So I started to focus on really picking up my feet. And that tired me out even more. I was also incredibly thirsty. So thirsty that I couldn’t even swallow my own spit. I know, gross. I have no idea what was going on. But it was horrible. Torture. When Jake the iPod announced that I had finished 1K, I almost cried. Thought about stopping right there on the sidewalk and throwing a tantrum.

It didn’t help that I had been so excited and instead was frustrated and disappointed. I told myself I wouldn’t accept anything less than 3K. I would not allow myself to stop before that. A part of me thought that if I gave myself permission to stop and pushed past that point, I’d find the motivation to keep going.

Wrong. At 3K, I was done. Done. So I quit right where I was and walked home.

So I’ve been trying to figure out what went wrong. Here’s what I’ve got.

• I really wasn’t well hydrated. I usually drink at least 2 Nalgene bottles of water during my workday. I doubt I’d had half of a bottle over the course of my afternoon.
• I ran at 2. I’d had coffee, yogurt and granola around 9:30. That was it. I had no fuel left.
• I had planned on running to Jillian’s podcast. It didn’t stop where I left off and instead started over. I spent the first few minutes of my run trying to figure out how to skip through a podcast with the Nike+ thing still going. Without success. As much as I love Matt Wertz, he really wasn’t what I was planning on listening to. So that got me a little irritated and unfocused.

So tomorrow is a new day. With a new run.

And I’m ready for it.

(For those of you who have asked, I track my runs using the Nike+ iPod system. A little receiver plugs into my iPod and a little coin thing goes in my shoe. I love it. I never have to worry about remembering which streets I went up to measure distance or set anything to track my time. I push the center button and I go. She gives me verbal cues when I reach certain distances and I can get immediate feedback of distance, time, and calories just by pushing a button at any point in my run. I love it. But I’m very visual. Does anyone else use one? I’d love to have some friends in the Nike+ universe!)