Believe to Achieve

Excuses first. I AM TIRED. Brain tired. Like it won't shut down but needs to. After Thursday night shift I could only sleep four hours. All day felt this fuzzy headache thing and just couldn't fall asleep. Finally at 11pm I nodded off for an hour and 1/2. Got back to sleep on and off and felt crumby. Muscles okay just brain tired. So at 7am I left to pick up Melanie at the park and ride. I knew she would smoke me in this one. Longer races like the 32 miler after no sleep eventually wake me up but short distances speedy ain't happening. We got there at 720 am so we ran the gorgeous Provo River Trail, bringing back tons of memories for me as I used to live 1/2 mile from the 1.5 mile marker!!! It was beautiful scenery thankfully as truly my eyes wanted to close but I was determined to stay awake and try to tempo this run today. We ran four miles nice and easy. We got back three minutes to the race start. It started at 8am. It was out to the lake and back. This way I could cheer Melanie on. She did awesome (2nd in 31:51!!!). I on the other hand came in at 34:10. Fast enough for 3rd place but for the time standard for a cash prize for a master was 33:40. 30 seconds and I could have been paid $20 to run this tired. One more night to acclimate back to a regular sleep cycle then I believe I could have done under 33 minutes. Sasha wasn't sure of the actual lost speed but he did say it was significant cause of neuromuscular fatigue (working nights) for a woman and being over 40. Some day I will work days again. I don't even feel sore I just feel this "final leg of the Wasatch back relay feeling" after being up all night. If anyone has done the relay this is how I always feel running after night shifts these days. Pace even split at halfway mark more uphill on way back so good with this even split. 6:50 pace for five miles. Ran another 2.5 miles after the run to make that 11.5 miles total. Here's to two more night shifts then sleep, sleep sleep until Ogden!!