The Mistakes I've Made

I’ve found it’s been pretty easy to blog about running when things were going good, or even to blog about little setbacks while everything felt like it was moving forward.  However, when I’ve sat down to write this blog about my journey post Boston and what happened when things aren’t positive it’s been a pretty tough thing for me to do.  I started blogging to tell my story and I finally convinced myself recently that my story includes all the bad moments along with all the good.  All of it tells the journey of Nick Klastava and it’s by no means close to being finished.  And if I want to continue to blog and tell about my experiences, I need to be able to write about the bad too.  Because it’s in bad times that we can truly find ourselves and find out what makes us tick.  This story begins post Boston Marathon when in early May I began up my training hoping to continue to build on the fitness I had achieved.  Except as I did everything was met with resistance.  My mental state was not supporting my running, physically my body continued to break down and I was suffering from massive amounts of fatigue.  A recipe for disaster that for many weeks I tried to push through before shutting it down.  I made many mistakes and I hope in this article I can lay out them in a way to help others avoid, or at least provide an interesting read for you. 

The first and probably biggest mistake I have made is overtraining the past year and pushing too hard post Boston.  This summer went downhill way before I started feeling the ill effects.  Sure when I started my build up post Boston things just didn’t click and I felt a general sense of fatigue and in a vacuum it’s easy to look at this tiny sample and assume it just meant I didn’t take enough time off, but when you look at the big picture you can see mistakes I made long before.  My 2016, which I have written countless blogs about went exceptionally well but to say I pushed my body harder than ever before would be an understatement.  I look back and see countless times when my log screams take a rest Dummy yet I was out on Tuesday pushing through a workout or running a Marathon in back to back weekend’s.  I pushed so hard I never even made it to JFK (my peak race) injury free.  But I just kept pushing and then when Boston ended and I wanted to get back at it this summer I went right back into it.  I can’t imagine a race in my life that I pushed my body to the limit as much as I did Boston this year.  With the heat, sporadic training, and really terrible pacing I made that race as hard as I could and when I finished I was absolutely toast.  Yet a couple weeks later I am out doing workouts again, my first run back was 10 miles!  In the moment, this stuff didn’t faze me but looking back I see how dumb it was and wish I was smarter.  Even as workouts continued to tank and I received advice from fellow runners to not run races I signed up for and take a break I stubbornly pushed through thinking I could find this magic out of nowhere (Yeah, I never found it).  There were many times in 2016 and 2017 that my plan worked and I was doing the proper training, but as I’ll get into more in the next paragraph it’s the times I felt invincible that I think really cost me.

There are many times as runners we feel inferior to our old running self, or fear like we will never get back to the shape we once had.  We are knocked down, but we fight and scrap to get back and keep grinding. Myself though I always find when I am trying to get back into shape and feel my fitness is not where it is that I tend to err on the side of caution.  However, last year and into this year as races kept going my way I generally started to do foolish things, I started to feel invincible.  I mean I knew my limits, I didn’t think I could beat everyone it wasn’t about winning, I started to feel like I couldn’t miss (Kobe!).  I felt I could do a race and my fitness would be there and lead me to my goal and I could turn around on short rest and do 2 workouts the following week and race again.  It was this cockiness with my own fitness that lead to feeling like I was invincible (I of course am not invincible far from it).  It’s easy to get carried away when results keep coming your way but eventually this behavior will take its toll on you.  There is of course a huge difference between cockiness and confidence, we all need confidence to reach our goals but you need to take a step back every once in a while, and see how far you’ve come and acknowledge that.  Take a rest day or break, enjoy what you are accomplishing and realize it’s about the long game.  I’ve had many friends point out to me how far I have come when I spent a lot of this summer whining about how my running wasn’t working.  It took me some months to finally let it sync in and realize just how special it was to accomplish what I did, and how next time to not be so brash about it.

The third major mistake I have made is literally ignoring my body and every sign it’s given me.  I have looked back at my logs and I have basically been in pain some way or another since before JFK (around early Nov 2016).  As I’ve written about I got hurt a few weeks before JFK but figured I could get it worked out, and suffered through 26 painful miles (but the first 24 miles were solid!).  I then took some time off, started up again immediately to a new pain in my left hip area which I managed to overcome through some physical therapy this winter and put together two good races in March.  Leading up to Boston my hamstring pain returned but I wasn’t going to let that hold me back, which of course acted up mid-race and held me back (The house always wins).  And then post Boston when I returned to running not only was my body fatigued beyond belief but I was and am still fighting piriformis (just about one of the most painful feelings I have experienced, I literally never want to sit or drive in a car).  And all this time while I list out these symptoms and injuries never once did I take time completely off, or skip a race because of an injury.  I kept grinding, maybe being “smart” and lowering mileage but still training.  And while I was doing it, it seemed to make sense to me.  I thought I was being smart lowering mileage and taking care of my body but when I write it out it sounds like ravings of a lunatic(#RunnerProbs).  I was constantly in pain one way or another but since I could squeeze in a couple good days or a good race I just kept going.  These are the signs that as a runner you need to acknowledge and address.  Running through injury after injury is eventually going to get you and it finally did this summer as piriformis has shut me down hard since early June.

At some point this summer I reached a point where I started whining and feeling sorry for myself. Feeling sorry for my running, feeling like people owed me something, whining to people who had it much worse how my problems mattered. It was unhealthy and bad behavior and took me months to get out of.  It really felt uncharacteristic of me and how I have been, running to me has always been joyful and special.  To find myself whining because a race went poorly or because I was fatigued and couldn’t complete a workout is small in the list of why I run, and ended up costing me as I kept grinding through it.   But then I realized I wasn't going to let this define me or ruin running for me. I do this for me, for my chance to be great at something.  Running has always been a special part of my life. It's one of the things that helped me deal with my ADHD as a teenager. It's how a socially awkward person like myself made friends in high school, college and now as an adult and it's how I met the love of my life and married her. Except for a brief period, post college, most of my entire life running has been with me through the good and bad.  I honestly know deep down my life would be very different if not for running.   It's not always about running a PR, running is what helps me deal with life but this summer I let the negativity that sometimes surrounds it get to me and my running suffered.  

Injuries, over training, a fatigued body, a crushed running mental state all these among others are the factors I attributed to my running summer. I had been pushing my body basically redlining it for a really long time and I think Boston was the breaking point. And when my body broke I let it take down everything else with it. I'd be remiss if I didn't mentioned the many amazing friends who reached out, offered advice and just encouragement. It's refreshing to know you have people that care.  It’s what makes the running community and running friends such a special part of our lives.  While we are out there all on our own racing ourselves, the friends you meet and make along the way become a part of your life and we all root for each other’s successes.  I am grateful for the many people I have met along the way and for the people who kept reaching out to me throughout this summer.

All those mistakes aside this summer I finally broke from my usual “Feel sorry for myself because things go wrong" mantra.  The people who know me in life can almost pinpoint the second when something goes wrong with me because my mannerisms change and I get quiet.  It’s something I have acknowledged and tried very hard to fix, to not even let myself get to that point.  So, when things went wrong with running and other aspects of my life this summer, after a brief period of “old nick” I broke the cycle and took care of myself.  While I basically ran my running into the ground, I managed to have a pretty remarkable summer nonetheless.  I took a step back from ultra-competitive Nick and met some amazing new running friends (and shared many great runs together), I spent so many amazing days with my daughter, wife and family, participated in some really fun friend events, and just stopped taking running so seriously.  When I could fit in a run I did, but with all this negativity that was surrounding my running I needed to do something to help me deal with it.  I needed to do this for me, and I believe that it’s helped me generally feel excited about the idea of training again. 

As we get out of the summer and enter the fall I have a new hope that I will eventually get myself to running pain-free again.  I’ll be excited to get back on the trails that I love so much, get in more runs with my running friends, and strike this balance again that I will need to continue this sport for many years to come.  I continue to express in words and in my thoughts just how important running is to me from so many different aspects of my life and how to make sure I can incorporate it into my life with a better balance.  Also I’ll make sure my daughter is included and understands all the joy and why I run in the years to come.  I have since finally signed up for a fall race, The California International Marathon in December in Sacramento.  I am much excited for a fall challenge and hopefully I can get to the line mentally and physically ready to run but if not, I damn well will enjoy every second of the journey to the starting line and appreciate everything much more after the summer I have experienced. 

My Keys to Running Success

It’s been a while since I blogged and I wanted to write a post on some of my keys to running or achieving goals and what has helped me the past few years and this year.  Below are what I find are the three biggest things that have kept me motivated and running great this year and I think are some of the most important things you can do in running and in life to achieve your goals.

1)      Find a way to way to have joy with running.  It’s easy to set goals and strive towards those goals and we can easily find joy when we accomplish them, but if you want to have success with running it has to go beyond that.  You need to find joy in running every day, it can’t just be based on successes or goal races.  It’s really important to have goals as they help us have something to strive for but we need to find a way to love running.  In 2016 I can truly say I have found utter joy in running.  I have missed goals, I have swung for the fences and missed, and I have had some really bad races but I can say I have had so much fun and I love the chance to go out every day and run again.  It’s the single biggest reason to me this year I have been able to keep going strong and race as often as I have.  From great times at races, to group runs, to track workouts with everyone struggling together every time out on a run is a joyful occasion.  I have had the luxury to meet so many friends this year through running and it’s that type of happiness to keeps me coming back for more.  If you can do nothing else for yourself, when it comes to running find a way to absolutely love it aside from just running personal bests.  Or you will find yourself struggling to ever satisfy yourself, because in the end there will always be another goal to achieve and we will never find ourselves happy.  Running for most of us is a hobby we do and not our full time job, if you make it like your second job you will find it may become too much for you.

2)      Consistency – Just like with everything in life the more consistently you do it the better you become at it and running is obviously no different.  The single greatest you can do to become a better runner is just be consistent.  Day in and day out, week after week.  Put together a good week and follow it up with another good week.  Sometimes as runners we get too bogged down with fitting in the perfect workout, or making sure to get in a long run and hit these splits and we get so overwhelmed or tired we end up missing a couple days or burning out or worse getting hurt.  Instead sometimes it’s just important to just keep putting in the work.  If you are sore go slower but get in the run.  It’s hard with running sometimes to stay consistent because the gains we see are usually not instant.  It sometimes takes a long period of consistency to start hitting the times we want, but if you keep with it you will reach your goals.  Running is the great sport that the more you put into it the more you get out.  If you start anywhere with improving your running, be consistent as you do that start fitting in workouts and other stuff from there.

3) The last thing I’d say that is a key to success is just determination.  It kind of goes with joy but it’s just having that desire and fire to be your best.  Determination is something we all have in any aspect of life, it’s what makes us push extra hard to accomplish something when faced with adversity.  It’s what helps us run that extra mile or push through the pain.  When you have a goal you want to achieve you now need the determination to do whatever it takes to reach it.  Having joy with running and being consistent are keys to getting you there but you have to want to get after it.  Only you can control your desire to achieve the goal and what you are willing to do to accomplish it.  In the end the goal you set needs to be something you are willing to push your body to achieve so make sure to never set your goals to something unobtainable.  Set goals that you know you will be determined to achieve not just something that sounds like you should do.  That way you will force yourself to get after it.  For me in 2016, I was determined to PR at every distance from 5k to Marathon and I even added some Ultra's to the plan.  I've wanted to have range at all distances and that goal has allowed me to stay determined all year to try and achieve it.

It’s been a while since I did a recap of my training so here’s a shorter version of what I have done in September and October.  September and October now rank as #1 and #2 all time on my mileage months.  I hit 340 miles in September and 366 miles for October.  In September I had a pretty intense 22 day stretch where I ran 274 miles, 4 races and 4 workouts and 3 long runs all in that period.  It was the most intense period of training of my life but it was worth it when it was all done.  During that period the 4 races I ran were Parks Half Marathon where I was 11^th in 1:18:06 on a really hot day, 34:53 for Race for our Kids 10k for 5^th place when everyone showed up to get paid, probably one of my best races of the year the Charm City 20 miler where I ran 1:56:23 and got 1^st and 5 days later followed that up putting myself among the greats of Falls Road winning the RM Classic 5k in 16:20, now linking myself to Ryan McGrath for the rest of our lives.

As the clocked turned to October the training ramped up a little more.  Running some pretty quick workouts on the track and getting on the trails more often to get ready for JFK.  Probably the most fun I have ever had during a race was during the Baltimore Marathon Relay, where Falls Road put 6 Legends of the Hidden Temple teams in to all race one another.  I decided to run the entire Marathon with my relay team(Blue Barracuda's) and then running the last leg as hard as I could finish.  The team did a great job and I managed to pull us into second place among Falls Road teams and passing the 1^st place Mixed Team with 800 meters to go, winning the Mixed Relay for the squad and a sweet Baltimore Cheese Platter pictured below.  But it was just a fantastic day in Baltimore seeing so many friends and family running or cheering along the course.  I ended up running about a 2:52 marathon that day, and 8 days later I was off to Atlantic City to run the AC Marathon.  This was my first race in NJ since 2003 back at Monmouth.  Even 8 days removed from a marathon and doing a long run the day before I was able to get 4^th in the Atlantic City Marathon and run a evenly paced 2:37:53 a new 3 minute 27 second personal best on a really windy day.  I finished up this 3 week stretch with another solid workout and long run and now it’s just time to get the body ready for JFK 50 Miler on 19 November.  I can't wait!

A lot of fun in the past two months of running and even a fun experience working at the Baltimore Expo selling some shoes for Falls Road and getting yelled at by my boss for two days.  Check out the pictures below!  I hope you enjoy.