Hurt

Holy crap today hurt and kicked my butt and let me know in no uncertain terms that I am now officially out of shape, de-trained, still suck and am slow!  I sort of figure that for the off-season I will try to get in a longish run on Saturday and then a longish bike ride on Sunday.  Well, at least on the weekends that I don't have a Fall Series Disgrace... I mean Fall Series Race.

Had some pretty big projects going on around the house and errands to do like return the rental car from yesterday's trip so it was late before I got to start on my run and when I did it was warm.

I wore my Hoka Sinson Tarmac road shoes since was to be primarily an inner-city run.  Mostly to break them in more and to save the tread on my trail shoes.  They did great... me not so much.

Even from the get go my breathing and heart-rate seemed through the roof.  If I were the Jeep I'd be doing 7,000 RPM but only doing 34 MPH.  That is what it felt like.  I tried to slow it down get a rhythm going but that didn't quite work out either.

To be honest the first ten miles went okay... nothing great but okay.  After that though it was just a struggle.  I bet I had to talk myself out of calling a cab at least a half a dozen times to come pick me up. It was that bad.  I altered the route at about mile 14 just to give myself a shorter/straight shot home to end the misery.   That was about the time that I called Melissa too and was whining about the run and wanting to be done and wishing she were here instead of there so she could come and get me!  Yeah, it was that bad.

But during today's run, as much as it sucked I got to thinking.  The past few weeks I have really not felt like myself.  I've been depressed, moody, crabby, and not in the good way like I usually am. No.. the past few weeks I have felt tired...  Old and tired.  Like most of the time I feel like a 15  year-old in the body of a 44 year-old and the 15 year-old is strong enough to motivate and move.... Lately I have felt like a 70 year-old in a 44 year-old body and it is not fun.   But I think I know why...

I am not in what is my "sweet spot" mileage-wise and it is taking a toll.  70 miles per week... that seems to be the number.  Anything  under and I tend to feel crappy.  Anything significantly over for an extended period of time and I feel like poo as well.  BUT!  If I am to err, I feel much better over 70 MPW than under.  Important data.

Coach Weber once told me in a specific context that anything under 50 MPW is suspect and I have always sort of subscribed to that. For me, that is the baseline... 50 MPW to just function.  It's no secret that my mileage these past several weeks has been extremely low compared to last year... it is also public knowledge that my Fall Series times are about 3-4 minutes off from last year as well.  More important data...

Now, let's look at the speedwork I have been doing.  Both my times in the 800 and 200 repeats have been coming down.  But is that progress taking tolls in other areas?  Are my speedwork sessions, even with the improving times doing more harm than good possibly?  Important question.

Now I haven't talked about this directly... I have talked around it a lot for sure, but I have never really stated my grand intention for 2013.  I'll skip the details for now and save those for a later date but I am going to register for Leadman once that opens up on December 1st. Very Important Data right there.

But today's run got me thinking and I am SURE that Tim will make it all clear in the future but really how in the hell am I going to rack up 100+ mile weeks next July AND get good quality volume on the bike?  I wonder.  I am also a touch concerned since it seems that I don't function well with low mileage as indicated the past few weeks.  I don't think I can be one of those guys who can rob Peter to pay Paul as it were.

Of course it is all part of the fun, the challenge, the unknown and will be part of the process of figuring things out during training.  I am not going to freak out about today's run as a harbinger of doom and disaster... it was a tough day and that was that.  No doubt that it let me know exactly where I stand and what all I need to get done.

Long bike ride tomorrow.  Should be fun!

Some kick ass guitar right here...