Too Much, Too Soon

The mileage this week was back to normal, but I could feel the effects of it all today and the signs are that I have to stop getting ahead of myself. Since Wednesday there has been a slightly longer run, a fartlek session and then a tempo run as part of a back-to-back weekend; looking at it now, it's no wonder today's run wasn't great.

Friday was reasonably easy, just the standard 10 miles at my "natural pace". That was fine. On Saturday I ran 2 slow warm-up miles followed by 8 miles at a faster pace, (mostly) keeping the same HR limit of 155 the coach had given me 4 years ago. That went pretty well and the pace was easily under 7-minute pace, which did please me - not that pace means anything at this point in training.

I did ponder what to run on Sunday. The original idea was to run 18 miles, including the very hilly loop around the lake, but then remembered that Sixmilbridge had only been 2 weeks ago and my hamstring had started hurting again after fartlek, so I ditched the idea of the hills altogether and also decided to run only 16 miles.

The run started well. It was a really lovely, sunny morning (it had been a good while since I had to bring my shades along again), but after 12 or so miles I seriously started dragging and hanging on and decided to take the shortest route back home which gave me 15 miles for the day; only 1 less than planned, but I was glad to be home.

So, the plan for next week is to take it a bit easier again. I am planning on doing an evaluation on Wednesday, otherwise I'll just be running easily. I will take stock at the end of the week and decide what mileage seems appropriate for the weekend. Any faster running will most likely be shelved, unless I make an unexpectedly quick recovery.

There could be something else at work. Lola has been feeling sick for almost 2 weeks now, the doctor says it's viral and she just has to recover by herself. I do have a headache today, which has me worried, though of course I can't say if I caught whatever is affecting her. So far my heart rate data indicates no sickness; I'll see what tomorrow brings. I rarely pick up the bugs the kids keep bringing home, but sometimes it does happen. We'll see.

28 Nov

10 miles, 1:18:31, 7:51 pace, HR 141

29 Nov

10 miles, 1:11:55, 7:11 pace, HR 149

   incl. 8 miles @ 6:57 pace (HR 153)

30 Nov

15 miles, 1:15:58, 7:43 pace, HR 140

Weekly Mileage: 77