I may be suffering from training burnout. For the past week, when I wake up there is a seed of doubt about whether I should run. Once I shake off the cobwebs and get into the morning routine, that feeling goes away quickly. It could be the fall blahs or as I am 90% certain, I picked up another cold from my kids. Whatever it is, the combination led me to take yesterday off. I planned an LR, but when I woke up, neither body nor mind were in sync. Bad, bad feeling.
Today I woke up knowing that I had to get a run in before heading out for a Dad’s & Daughter’s Halloween Party with the girls. The reason I planned an LR for Friday was the forecast called for rain on Saturday. Given how I have been feeling, 15 miles in the rain was not optimal. Therefore, to salvage a decent mileage week I switched my “recovery” run to this morning and pushed the LR until Sunday (no rain expected). Confused? Me too.
After putting on the gear, I checked the weather and saw it was wet, but no rain. Therefore, I hustled out the door to get down to business. 61* w/ slight wind and based on how much was dripping, a lot of humidity. The run itself felt sluggish … like the first day back after a rest day. Breathing was uneven … at times I felt like I was gliding and then laboring. I didn’t care about pace as I just wanted get the miles in to loosen up the muscles/joints for Sunday’s LR.
In the end, a couple of pleasant surprises: (1) no rain and the sun actually appeared midway through the run and (2) despite feeling subpar and not thinking about it, I maintained my goal pace for easy/recovery runs of sub 9:00 for 5.14 miles. I’m not even going to second guess myself about failing to add 2-3 more miles because I wasn’t feeling great. How could I tell it just wasn’t there physically? I let plenty of folks who had no business doing so pass me up without a fight. But then again, racing people is not supposed to happen on easy runs anyway.
Tomorrow I plan to throw an LR at this cold so we will see if that doesn’t beat it into submission, again.