Paul Long: Runners sometimes just have bad days, and it happens to all of us, experienced and new

Anyone who has ever strapped on a pair of running shoes and hit the pavement or the trails knows the feeling of a bad run. It can start early in the run, when we have trouble just getting up to speed. It can start midway through the race, when we run out of power long before we should.

It could be late in the run, when the aches and pains that should have gone away a while back are hanging around and making themselves known.

Heck, it could be before the run even starts, when we have that freakish feeling that somehow, for some reason, this run just isn’t going to be a good one.

It’s the runs that are so bad we are embarrassed about them, and really don’t like to talk about them. The runs in which no matter what we do, we just cannot find a rhythm.

That was how my run went this past Saturday. Not just at the start, not just in the middle, and not just near the end. Instead, every part of the 8.26-mile run went badly. I had trouble getting started, and even more trouble keeping it going. No matter what I did, I simply could not find a rhythm or a comfortable pace. My energy was lacking.

Here’s how bad I felt: After the run, we had doughnuts that someone had brought to share. I grabbed one of the few remaining ones — I was one of the last one to return. But eating it was another matter. The energy it took to move my mouth up and down to chew it was almost too exhausting. When I say my entire body was aching, I truly mean my entire body.

I’m not the only one who has suffered through the slings and arrows of outrageous running fortune.

“Some days things feel great and others not so much,” said fellow runner Christine Lang-Boehmer of Florence. “If you’re going to have a crappy run, at least it was eight miles. Your next run will be fabulous — and then you can eat as many donuts as you want.”

Now, I do have an excuse. Heck, I’ve got lots of them: Maybe it was the hill repeats we did earlier that week wore me out. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep the night before. Maybe the weather wasn’t conducive to running — but it was cool and comfortable Saturday morning, so that one was out.

Actually, I do have a legitimate excuse, but even that one is fading.

Early in July, I had an even worse run — one in which I ended up in the hospital. I didn’t have a heart attack, but it was close. Instead, it turned out that I needed an angioplasty to open up two blocked arteries. I had been wondering why my stamina had plummeted in the weeks previous to that.

So anyway, I have been running about six weeks since then, making a slow and unsteady comeback. Saturday’s planned eight-miler was to be the longest run since my surgery.

Indeed, to help me get ready for the upcoming Market-to-Market relay I’m running Sept. 5, I had planned to run twice on Saturday — the eight miles in the morning, then another three miles or so in the evening. I had hoped it would mimic the double run I’ll be making during the relay.

But the first run proved not to be a good start.

We started out running down Turkeyfoot Road, and then through the subdivision behind the Crestview Hills Town Center to Dudley Road and down to Dixie Highway. I made it to the second mile somewhere along Dixie Highway before the sea of troubles set in. I thought about cutting the run short. I stopped to walk twice, but was able to make it another two miles down Beechwood Road to the I-75 overpass before true exhaustion set it. I was only halfway through, past the point of cutting it short, so I had no choice but to keep going, putting one foot in front of the other, and trudging on.

From there, it was part run, part walk. Others encouraged me, and I felt OK at times, no great scary pains, ready to run with friends, but soon enough, again found myself trailing behind the packs.

So I set tiny goals — run to the next stop sign. Run to the next fire hydrant. Walk across the street, then run to the next corner.

“Some days you have it,” said Eric Kavalauskas of Edgewood. “Some days you feel like it is your first run ever.”

Later that evening, I went back out. I ran just under three miles around my neighborhood. It wasn’t my best run, but it did improve my running morale.

Paul Long writes weekly for the NKyTribune about running and runners. For his daily running stories, follow him at dailymile.com or on Twitter @Pogue57