Slowly Getting Faster

This was not a good morning.  To start with, I spent an hour in the bathroom pre-run, which is a long time even for me. When I was finally able to leave I still felt like crap.  I decided I needed to get my miles in anyway so out the door I went.  It took me 5 miles to find my stride and feel good about my run.  The first 5 miles were a mixture of slow jogging due to leg muscle pain from Saturday's effort and stopping to stretch to try and avoid injury.  The last 4 miles felt really good and if I had more time I may have kept going.  Fortunately I didn't because now I'm very tired and barely able to function.  I think I'm coming down with something.  I should probably go home and sleep it off. 

I feel much better today.  All day yesterday I was convinced that I was getting sick.  Then last night, I went with my wife's family to McDonald's and ended up eating about 2,000 calories worth of food and drink.  Suddenly I felt much better.  I knew I hadn't been getting enough calories over the past few days but I didn't realize that it was that bad. I have been so focused on trying to fuel the machine with healthy food that I neglected to fuel the machine completely. According to my heart rate monitor I burned over 2,000 calories on Saturday and I replaced only 2/3 of that throughout the day.  I've just got to resort to eating crap to get my calories I guess.  Unless someone can tell me how to eat enough healthy food to get there? 

I did the same 9 mile route today that I did yesterday. It's pretty flat so after a mile, recognizing that I was feeling alright, I decided to run a 4 mile tempo starting at mile 3.  The goal was to keep my pace under 8:30.  Not a monumental task, but considering my times of late have been closer to 9:30 than 8:30 I thought it was a good place to start. I managed to keep my splits between 8:20 and 8:30, with most of them in the 8:25 range. 

Tomorrow I think I'll give the speed some rest but try and put some more hills into the workout.  See if I can get my climbing legs back a bit.  I'm registered for the Moab trail half marathon in November and I'm thinking maybe I'll start running Centerville peak up to the skyline road a couple of times a week after St. George is over. So, to get ready for that I'll start climbing asphalt here. we'll see how it goes.  

9 with 2 of that up the canyon.  Legs not feeling it today so the whole thing was slow.  Almost 20 minutes slower than yesterday's 9 miles. 

Not very fast today.  I thought I might try and squeeze in another tempo but my legs were not feeling it.  I think the distance is getting to them.  I'm not used to running 9 miles, let alone running 9 miles 4 days in a row.  I think I will stick with this distance next week rather than try and bump my daily miles to 10.  If I can get comfortable with the 9, and can get some more tempos and speed work in, then I will bump to 10 the following week. Maybe. 

Trying to finish the week strong.  I need to figure out how to fit 6 days of running into a week.  I would have broke 60 miles this week had I managed that. Still, I set out this morning with a goal of 16 miles.  But after about 9 I thought it would be a shame not to just push for that extra 2 and get double my daily mileage. I managed 13.1 in 2 hours and 18 in 2:48 so I think I can get 26 in close to 3:30 with a few more weeks of training. It will help that the last 8 or so miles will all be downhill at close to 2500 feet elevation.  I just need to get my legs used to the distance first. I think next week I'll keep to the 9 a day and try to fit 6 days in.  

The first half felt great, second half was more of a mental effort, last 3 more of a physical effort.