Ooof, it’s been a long week.  And I have 2 more days of work to get through, wah.  Ok, now 1 since I fell asleep before finishing this last night.

I knew going into this dietary change that the first few weeks were going to be rough.  I just didn’t realize how tired I was going to feel.   This is a new level of tired.   In some ways the adjustment is going easier than I thought but I know it will take a few weeks to figure things out and get in the flow.    I’d like to try to give it some more time before I get into more details, hopefully.  I’m anxious about how it will go over for some reason.

Last week we hit the 90’s a few times and this week we have had some crazy wind going on.  I left work on Wednesday and was treated to 35 mph winds.  Which might be nothing to someone else but is about 16x the normal for around here.    I was glad I wasn’t running until Thursday.   Plus, Thursdays’ run was making me anxious so putting it off was a little bit of denial.    Thursday was the rescheduling of Tuesday’s speed work.   8 miles on tap- 2 mile warm up, 4 miles at half marathon pace, 2 mile cool down.    Say what?!  8 miles mid-week was the first part that made me anxious.  Luckily I had a half day on Thursday, so that was kind of awesome.  As for half marathon pace miles, I have never intentionally set out to run those paces in a run outside of a race.   When I cut back on the speed work in March due to my hamstring issues the only workouts I missed or abbreviated were tempos or intervals.  This was the first time pace miles were on the schedule.   Plus being so tired and basically under-fueled made me nervous.  I am all for running on an empty stomach but it’s been a very light few days- calorie wise.  I wasn’t even sure I could hit those paces right now.

While the idea of lapping the lake numerous times didn’t thrill me, I headed to the lake path after work to get in the miles.    I parked on the backside so  I could have easy access to my car.  I treated it like an aid station.  I left my water in the car and had some string cheese in case I needed a snack.  Mile 1 felt tough but manageable but I was still thinking of only doing an easy 5.    I was feeling better in mile 2 so I decided to stick to the original plan.   Mile 3 felt hard but not too bad, 9:13 wasn’t where I needed to be but it was pretty damn close.   I was trying to not look at my watch while running and just judge by how I felt.  Mile 4 felt similar to 3 but clocked in faster at 8:56.  I was feeling pretty good but had to detour to the restrooms.  Another plus about running at the lake.Starting mile 5, I was still feeling pretty good and starting to think I was going to pull this off.   Seeing 9:05 when it buzzed was pretty cool.   I was still only looking at my watch when it buzzed the lap splits.    Mile 6 was a whole other story.  I have no idea what happened.  I felt like I was putting out the same effort and running the same pace but I happened to glance at my watch and I saw a 10:00 lap pace.  What?!

I had walked slightly more in the beginning of the mile because I had to dodge around a large crowd of people in the park.   No matter what I did, I just could not get the lap pace down.  I felt like I was running through sand and my legs just wanted to stop moving.  Then as I neared my car again, I noticed a truck parked length wise behind it blocking it in.  What the hell?  I stopped a bit away to see what was going on and instead of hitting pause, I hit the damn lap button.  Ugh.  Turns out the truck was just a city worker replacing the doggie bags in the dispenser.   I then ran on, trying to hit my pace for what I thought was left in that mile.   Didn’t happen.

Pace miles done, all I had left was the cool down.  The rest of mile 7 still felt hard and sluggish.   Mile 8 felt much better.  I had a delusional moment during 8 where I briefly considered trying to run my 12 miler right then.  Luckily sanity kicked in and I finished with 8.     Miles 6 and 7 kicked my ass and I was considering more?  I walked back to my car using the fitness equipment along the way to stretch.

So, I hit pace for 3 of the 4 HMP miles.  Not too bad.  I really wish I would have hit the 4th mile as well but I am still calling it a win.   Now I just have to figure out how to get through a 12 miler this weekend without running into the same wall.  I think I may slow my pace to a crawl to get through it.   Make my goal time on my feet, so even if I have to walk part of it, that’s fine.  But we’ll see how it goes.

What about your weekend?  Long run or race in the plans?

12 mile crawl or solid 8-10?

How is your weather?

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