Thursday January 20, 2011

Workout: Tempo run - 4 miles total
Time: 38:11
Pace: 9:32 (average) 
Weight: 128.0


Tempo run was: 
  1 mile warm up at 10:00 pace 2% incline
  2 mile tempo run at 9:15 pace 2% incline
  1 mile cool down at 9:40 pace 1% incline


This was the best I felt while running in quite a while.  I made a mental goal to get through the first mile of the tempo run (+the mile warm up) before I could take a quick hop off to turn on the fan.  I ended up finishing out a song... and then a lap... so I got through 1.25 miles of the tempo run and hopped off to turn on the fan.  I was off for .07 miles, so I added .10 on to the second mile so that I ran 2 full miles at 9:15 pace.  It was hard, but I mentally gutted through it and really focused on my breathing and the regularity of it.  I was going to complete the entire thing without any stops, but at 3.3 miles I had to get off and go to the bathroom.  Was pretty ticked about it, but it was what it was... debated about finishing the cool down and ultimately getting the mileage in won out in the end and I finished.


I took Tuesday and Wednesday off of working out.  I felt so horrible on Monday after my 4.5 mile run.  I thought it was just over training, but it ended up being fever/flu symptoms.  I laid on the couch for the entire day with fever aches in my back, butt & knees.  Other than that I felt fine - head was fine, sinuses fine, stomach fine.  Not sure what was going on, but two days off helped a lot.


I'm really happy that we've revised the training schedule, but at the same time I have an internal conflict because I feel like I'm not rising to the challenge of the harder schedule.  I think it was too much.  Jason doesn't feel like it was too high of mileage.  I mentioned that to Dave and his response was: "Jason is a much better runner than we are."  Very, very true.  Ultimately I need to listen to my body and be mindful of how a too hard training schedule will impact my marriage and my family.  With the way I was feeling - physically - it was bound to start impacting things with it being so many miles so early on.  If I gradually work up to higher mileage, like we've done in the past, my body will get used to it.


I've got to remember that I'm running my own race.