December 16th-22nd Training

Monday: 4.6 miles (6:49); 8.4 miles (7:23)

Tuesday: 7 miles (6:49); 7.8 miles (6:57). Was hoping to do 10x1:00 on/off and very slowly ease into it but my legs were shot/dead/flat/drained .1 miles into the first one, so I felt it would be best to scrap the session and just did some jogging.

Wednesday: 5.3 miles (6:47); 10.5 miles (6:37)

Thursday: 6 miles (6:57); 6.2 miles. Was planning on running 3 miles@5:55, 3 miles@5:30, and then as many miles at 5:05 as I could without redlining.  I got through 2.6 miles at 5:51 pace but my legs felt drained and I knew 5:30s would be very tough and I wouldn't have a shot at 5:05s.  Will try something tomorrow.

Friday: 13.7 miles with 7.12 miles at 5:11 average.  Goal was two down-and-backs on LSC, which would be a little over seven miles, at 5:10 average.  I knew it wouldn't be far enough to be a marathon workout but I wanted to get in at least a small amount of marathon effort running since I'm draining fitness right now.  I was really nervous about this and was expecting to fail. It was kind of like sparring night at my old gym. If the coach told you to go into the ring, you were expected to go at 100% against whoever else was in there. Sometimes I knew I would have the upper hand or be able to hold my own, others I knew I was probably going to get the crap kicked out of me for a couple rounds (except one time I held my own against some guy much tougher than me since he had a bad hangover). This workout was like the latter.  But the plan was to go out around 5:10-5:15 and see if I could drop down some.  Legs were pretty flat the first few minutes but I was on pace with a 5:12 first mile.  I sped up and ran 15:24 the next three miles and was feeling pretty smooth before I suddenly started losing my mojo and was struggling to keep on pace with the last three miles being 5:12, 5:14 and 5:16.  Maybe I could have stayed on pace but I wasn't going to force it yet.  Normally, I'm able to run negative splits in workouts, so I think this showed I still have a good bit of lingering fatigue going on.  I was hoping to get some good karma today from saving a mouse from a glue trap, but I guess not.

Saturday: 9.8 miles (6:57); 6.1 miles (7:32)

Sunday: 21.1 miles with 18.1 miles at 5:29 average.  Made up a route that would be about 18.5 miles and my goal was to ease into it and hopefully average 5:30 or under.  Was feeling pretty flat from the get-go and was struggling up hills that normally wouldn't be an issue.  Ran my first sub 5:30 in the 6th mile and then was in the zone for a while.  Around 11-12 miles, I was getting really hungry and thirsty, so I decided to take a detour to my house and stopped there a little under 14 in and quickly downed a few glasses of water, a Powerbar, Powerbar gummies and some chocolate Christmas candy before jumping back out again.  My legs started to get pretty heavy around 16 in and I was debating ending the workout but I wanted to make it to the end of the road so I could turnaround and get the tailwind.  After 17, I knew I probably shouldn't make it to 18.6 or whatever it would be, so I decided to stop at 18 if I was under a 5:30 average and if not, run hard until I was.  Luckily it was .1 miles after 18, so I stopped and walked around for a minute since I was pretty tired. This was seven seconds a mile slower than last month and about 10 seconds a mile slower than what I would like if I never got sick  But I figure I can improve 10 more seconds in four weeks with regained and future fitness and the lingering sickness fatigue out of the way.; 2.9 miles (7:30ish)

Week Total: 112.8 miles. A frustrating week but starting to come around.  My right sciatic nerve/lower back was hurting pretty badly off-and-on all this week and I had some pain at the attachment site of one of my hamstrings, on the inside/back of my knee.  It was really hurting the first part of the week but feels like it's slowly going away.  I guess being in bed for a few days, followed by jumping on the roads again did some damage.  With just four weeks until Houston, I need a good week next week, followed by a killer week the week after that.  I'll probably do a track workout Tuesday night and hopefully nail a marathon workout on Friday.  This is also my first of two weeks off.  Hopefully that means more sleep, harder training and less whining and drama.