Emily's training blog

I slept over nine hours last night. I was exhausted from all the weekend fun. After I dropped Cole off for his first day of second grade I went to the gym for an easy treadmill run. I've got some fatigued legs woth some sore spots, but I'm really not too bad. Nothing like Des News last year.

Today starts double runs for me as I increase my mileage. I will start with doubles on Tuesday and Thursday and we will see how it goes from there. It should help in the mornings to run a little shorter. I need to be back to take kids to school.

I still have fatigue in my hips, but otherwise I feel pretty good. I ran 1300W to the River Trail at 7000S and back at Millrace Park. 7:03 average.

PM: 4.8 miles. I don't love second runs. 7:24 average

AM: Short run. Double day. 5.3 neighborhood miles. School traffic is horrible. Nobody watches out. 7:16 average. The weather was perfect this morning.

PM: I thought I would feel terrible. I couldn't go run until 6:30 tonight. I hated waiting all day. I actually felt really good. Especially for five days post race. Your body is definitely more warmed up in the evening. It also helped that I had a brandnew iiPod shuffle! Good music makes the run enjoyable. 6:48 average. I may regret that pace tomorrow.

I originally planned to do a workout this morning, but I ran too hard last night, so I will wait until tomorrow. It will probably be somewhat short with a return to full workouts next week. Just being cautious, even though I'm feeling pretty good.

9.2 easy miles just to round out the weekly mileage.

I took advantage of Teren being home for a little change in scenery. Does anyone else experience a little mental crash the week after a race? You ride a race high fora few days and then all of a sudden hit a weird low? That's how I have felt since Wednesday. I'm sure I'll perk up. It's a familiar cycle. But, as of now I'm dreading the eighteen miles looming over me tomorrow.

Anyway. Workout. I went to Cottonwood Complex for hill repeats. I warmed up three miles. I did a two hill loop. Bessie, jog, Miranda, jog, repeated five times. Each loop was about .9 miles. Bessie is a 500 meter hill, Miranda is a 300 meter hill. I finished the hill circuits in 6:55 average and then jogged another mile along the perimeter of the park. The soft surface felt nice on my pounded legs. The hills were really hard. I forget how tough cross country really is.

I was so trashed on this run today. I was dizzy, thi. ty, and my legs felt terrible. So, I cut from my planned 18 to 15. I could have pushed through, but saw no benefit. I realized too late that I dugI' myself into a bit of a hole this week. On paper, the training doesn't look too bad, but my body tells another story.

A couple of indicators that I'm not recovering properly: No appetite and rapid weight loss. When I train well I am ravenous and eat everything in sight. When I overtrain I'm not hungry.

Insomnia. When I'm training properly I sleep well. I haven't been able to sleep in the middle of the night this week.

I felt really good early in the week, which was deceiving. Mid week I started to crash. I wasn't as recovered from the race as I thought. I need to be smarter. Sometimes I make rookie mistakes even though I'm a veteran runner.

I'm glad I had Jenny there to pull me through the run. I need to focus on recovery this weekend. Mostly I need to sleep and eat a lot.