Exhaustion Has Set In

By Wednesday afternoon of this week, the reality of working long hours, travelling across the country, running lots of miles with quality workouts and having a mild head cold set in. And it set in hard. By about 3:00 pm at work each day I was just spent. And last night, I couldn't keep my eyes open any later than 9:20 pm. I did not get out of bed this morning until 8:40 am and I still felt like I was dragging.

I hit the road to do my long run today fully knowing I may have to cut it to 6 and do my 20 miler tomorrow. Indeed, that is what ended up happening. I felt ok, but my HR was high and I was slow. I decided to get more rest/nutrition today and have a better chance for a good long run tomorrow.

It was funny though because as I was running, I was thinking about Fall 2007 when I did the Pfitz 18/70 program. At that time I was getting 8-9 hours of sleep a night and I was still so tired from training that I would frequently take a cat nap in the afternoon if I could sneak it in. Fast forward to now. I am running a modified 18/60ish, getting 6-6.5 hours of sleep a night with absolutely zero chance of getting in a cat nap. So, yes, I guess my recent fatigue makes perfect sense. So I need to try to make some adjustments so I can get some adequate rest. Not sure exactly how, but it is in the plan. :)

I am also at that middle point during my training where the blahs are starting to set in just a little bit. The good news is that even though I have only lost a couple of pounds, my clothes are starting to hang off me. That keeps me motivated! I am really looking forward to racing soon though. There aren't many in the early months of the year, but I really do look forward to getting back out there. I haven't run a race in MONTHS.

Oh yes, and as we close the books on January, I am pleased to see that I have logged just over 215 miles this month.