The Weak in Review

It's Saturday evening and I am in the spare bedroom, attempting to blog before I fall asleep. I was up until 3am last night hanging out with friends, and have yet to sufficiently recover. Hopefully my lapse in healthy living doesn't affect tomorrow's long run.

I tried to really hammer my workouts this week, but found that I had very little energy when it came time to put the pedal to the floor. I did a 5k tempo run at the Irving Nature Park that almost did me in, and followed that up with four average repeat miles on Friday. Both speed sessions were so uninspiring that I didn't even bother to blog about them, and my easy runs weren't much better. So much for big week before my taper.

Part of the problem was general fatigue. I've tossed and turned every night for the last two weeks, waking up every hour in anticipation for work calls that usually come between 6:30 and 7:30AM. Of course this makes me sluggish all day, and half asleep when it's time to work out. If I don't start sleeping better soon, I'm going to get sick, and that's not going to help my recovery before the marathon. If anyone has any sleeping tips, I'm all ears.

The other problem is my worn out sneakers. I have run my Mizuno Elixir 3's into the ground over the last two months, and my feet are now getting pounded each time I hit the pavement. I plan on getting a new pair as soon as the first pay cheque comes in (fingers crossed for Thursday), but until then I'll have to suffer in silence.

If all goes well I will finish my last long run tomorrow. I have no intentions on running as fast as I did at the Irving Nature Park last weekend, but I do expect to run for at least three hours. Most of my fellow KV Challengers are already cutting back on their mileage (the race is fifteen days away), but I find that I lose focus if I taper for longer than two weeks. Hopefully my body can bounce back before the big day.

I'll be back tomorrow with my last long run report, along with a few words from KV Challenge race committee. Stay tuned!

Sluggish Sunday

Two blogs in two days? That's an unprecedented amount of output, but I wanted to let you know about the amazing run I had today.

Ok, I am lying. My run today was terrible. It was just one of those days where I couldn't get anything right. Wrong clothes for the weather? Check. Badly planned route? Check. Dead legs? Check and check.

First off, let's start with the clothes. For some reason, I decided that three layers was sufficient for ten degree weather. Maybe in January, yes, but not in ten degree weather. Within minutes my t-shirt was soaked with sweat, and it wasn't too long before my hoodie followed suit. Gross, and uncomfortable.

Secondly, my route - a little loop from my house to Sheldon Point - was challenging and problematic. The trails at Sheldon Point haven't been taken care of in ages (I really hope they fix them up before they officially reopen the Nature Park) and I spent much of my time dodging fallen trees and muddy hills. In some place the trail was nearly non-existent, which led to me getting lost. Eventually, I gave up, and found a trail that led back to the main road.

And my legs just weren't cooperating. I recently bought a pair of Mizuno Elixir 3's (from Alex Coffin's Fitness Shop, of course) in the hopes that their light weight would inspire some faster training runs, but my legs were dead for 80% of the run. I expect some of it is due to last week's layoff, but it's still frustrating to crawl through runs that were easy just 10 days ago. Here's hoping for a noticeable improvement this week.