Running without a voice

It’s hard to believe in just one day, my running outfit went from this:

to this.

I guess that’s what driving 400 miles north will do.

I lost my voice on the ride up. I was talking on the phone to a friend with no problems shortly after we left. My mom called probably only a half hour later, and I could barely even squeak out hello. When I lose my voice, it's gone. After trying to tell Eric something three times while we were in line at a gas station, I finally had to text it to him in order to relay the information. I had to text him, while he was standing right next to me. Needless to say, I was a pretty boring road trip companion. 

We passed the time by listening to comedy shows and The Hunger Games on audiobook. We arrived at a very exciting part, so Eric was unable to interact with anyone until he finished listening on my ipod.

If you've read the book, you understand why this was necessary.

Since I was coughing up a lung, unable to speak, and my throat was on fire, I wasn't sure the 16 miler I had planned for Christmas Eve morning was going to happen. My throat felt better and I wasn't coughing when I woke up, so I headed out. 

I was so unmotivated to run, it was shocking. My family was hanging out in their pjs, drinking coffee, and spending several hours running on snow in temperatures well below freezing (21 degrees when I started!) was so unnappealing. I had a beautiful out and back route by the lake planned, so I tried to do my usual trick of pretending I just had to get to the turnaround to fool myself. Until a bridge repair threw a wrench in my plans.

Somehow, I became even less motivated to continue

I rerouted myself to take a nice little tour through my hometown (the mall, my high school, two ex boyfriend's neighborhoods....you get the idea). I was seriously struggling to continue at mile 7 (my little tour would have made stopping at about 9 miles nice and convenient) so I had to give myself some tough love and bring myself back to the hell that was the Stone Mill 50 Miler. Once I remembered that I had made it through those tortuous last "nine" miles, I realized this was nothing, and my mood finally improved (relatively speaking), even though it had started to snow.

The rest of the run was uneventful, except I tried my first Gu Roctane. Oh, and I ran 16.5 miles, because that would bring me to 40 for the week, and I like even numbers.

I wasn't terribly impressed, but maybe this awful run wasn't a fair assessment.

I have worked out for the past 8 days, with no rest day in there at all, including a race, two long runs, and speedwork. I know a lot of you hardcore athletes can handle that, but not this girl. I need a day off. My legs are begging for it. It was well worth it to schedule my rest day on Christmas though. Tomorrow, all the movement I'll be doing will be to get up and get more cookies. If someone puts the plate near me, I won't even have to do that. 

Are you working out tomorrow, or does your "exercise" plan resemble mine?

I've gotten up early and ran or exercised on Christmas before, but since Vince brought alcohol into our Christmas traditions, I prefer to have nothing holding me back from drinking copious amounts of wine on Christmas Eve .

What do you do to get your head out of your ass when you need to complete a run but you cannot think about anything except how much you want to stop running?