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May 15, 2006

At Least It Was Educational

I don't really want to talk about yesterday's 15 mile run. So I won't. Instead, I'm going to talk about the few, yet very important things, I learned from it:

• While bananas may be a fantastic post-run treat, they are not so good as a pre-run snack.
• Eating 4 hours pre-run will only get me through 10 miles or so, even with a larger snack than usual 30-60 minutes pre-run.
• I wasn't planning on taking off any time from work pre-marathon, but that's changed. If I work the full week before the marathon and have a week like I did last week? Not particularly horrible but just generally busy, stressful and tiring? I am not going to be in any mental shape to run the race at all. Vacation time has been planned, and the degree to which this excites me probably speaks to a larger need for some time off.

While the last 5 miles of yesterday's run pretty much sucked - I got to a point where I just didn't want to be running anymore and instead wanted to be at home, in bed, taking a nap... immediately - the first 10 miles were great. I was shooting for a 11:30 pace, but had a hard time hitting it - I'd alternately hit splits that were either too fast (closer to 11:00) or too slow (closer to 12:00), but it felt pretty good. I was in a groove, the sun was shining, it was all good.

Then I just got tired. Not so much physically tired as completely mentally unfocused. The only thing I can think of is my week of being busy at work and home and flat out not getting enough sleep (I slept in until 11 on both Saturday and Sunday, which never happens) just caught up with me. At least it was yesterday, and not last weekend during my 20-miler.

Here's hoping this week is better.

Posted by Dawn at May 15, 2006 12:07 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jay T at May 15, 2006 12:19 PM

Posted by: jeff at May 15, 2006 02:43 PM