Can't Win Them All

No surprise the blogging hasn't been the best but all for good reason. Two weeks ago we were petting sitting for some very needy, but adorable dogs. I didn't have much home downtime and, outside of the home downtime, was very structured and scheduled and for, well, running. That week of running went fairly well from what I remember. It was (and is kind of) early on so the long run was only ten and the speed sessions below six miles. 

Then the following week my mom was in town. The training this week was a little harder to get in. I did a spadework at an odd time before she arrived which went fine, but wasn't my best. I bailed on an indoor tempo because I was feeling pretty poor and didn't want to ruin a day with mom. That is, I'll admit, somewhat of an excuse but not a totally untrue one. I've definitely had runs that went bad that just ruin the full day (see below regarding today). I got the miles in just not the work. And then the long run was a bit short (ten instead of twelve) because I felt guilty being gone too long with her here. I also slept like ass before that one, tossing and turning in my head about what to do and how much time to take such that I was up at 6am and said just go and did.

This week training has been up and down. My easy runs have gone pretty well. One was a little short (seven easy miles in a work week is a mental hurdle that I haven't gotten to handle yet) but they all got done mostly inside because of the massive rain we had. My speed session Tuesday was inside and went fine with paces being close to prescribed. But today...

Today was a planned 5 mile tempo and I pretty much just screwed myself over from go. We made plans to go out with friends and from food choices (curry which wasn't carb-y enough) to drinks (I have to remember I'm in my forties) to a late night (11:30?!?) the set-up was gearing towards failure. And then I wasn't paying attention to the temp or humidity and needed to go across town for an appointment so went out for the start after 9am. It was 74 degrees, with 81% humidity at the start. I have no idea what it ended at other than too much. I still started and honestly, after the warmup and shoe change,I wasn't feeling great, but I wasn't feeling awful. Oh if only I knew.

I went out for the first mile at 8:00 because that's easy math and, even though my coach says to do it at 8:06, I'm stubborn about that. I also hit is right on the dot at 8:00 and during that mile and the change over, I felt good. It didn't seem like a terrible effort, I didn't need to adjust my form to keep it and I even thought, okay maybe I can do something at this pace that's pretty neat (meaning run a marathon). But oh man, then about a quarter into the next mile I started to tell I was having issues and I was going to go to two and turn back, but went 1.5 and knew I needed to head back. I continued to just over heat, stopping to collect myself. I had to get back to the car so I did try to re-focus and got in a third mile around 8:06 (mile 2 was 8:15) but once I hit the park and my car, I pretty much died. I was incredibly sweaty and did some walking and then thought about a start-up again but I felt like I was going to be sick. So then I took some shade time and planned to do a cooldown and was, again, feeling like I was going to be sick so even called it on that. I realized I just needed to get into the AC of my car and did just that at full blast. That made me feel a bit better and I went to my appointment and finally ate afterwards.

I still feel pretty crummy in that I did something stupid both yesterday and today and my body is trying to take a leave of absence from me. I know what I did wrong and I need to remember that and try to gauge what is important and when for me so I don't have such an epic fail again.

Tomorrow is a long run so hopefully that will go well enough to feel a little bit back on track.

Training Week July 5th-July 12th

I figured it would be fun to long-form some of my training weeks, mostly the workouts to see how this block goes. 

The easy runs this week went fine. I did one early morning and then one in the evening. The morning run was only four which was so nice because I didn't feel rushed in the AM. The evening one was a little harder but that was due to some house tasks we had to do beforehand, Both of these were on the tread for various reasons mostly being lazy

The speed workout was on Tuesday and it was toasty, 83 degrees with a real feel of 87 degrees. It was not supposed to be that warm but so it goes. The workout was short, 1 min on / 1 min off eight times so I was very hot and sweaty, but didn't feel unsafe. In the future, attention will be better paid and there will be shifts depending on the workout. The mins on were all between 6:34-6:59 which were faster than prescribed, but with how quick the intervals were I wasn't going to pay attention.

I had another speed workout today (Saturday) which was 3x1mi at marathon pace with .25 jog between the sets. My current marathon pace is 8:06 although my ever hopefully goal is an 8:00, but I'll try to pay attention to Coach. I got out fairly early which was good and the temp was lower with an okay amount off humidity. My mile splits were 7:42, 7:48 and 7:53 which were faster than prescribed but I felt pretty good. I wore supershoes which was a nice bounce. My goal was to hit the 8:00 pace and feel in control and not like I was overreaching and I didn't feel that even at these races so that's a win. It makes me exciting to keep reaching and see how this keeps going this block.

Reminder: it is week one. 😅

I'm jumping into this well after July 12th, but I think the long run the next day went well.