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?
