Trying to keep up with you

Same trail as yesterday and same tangents.  Manage to reduce time by 5 minutes but I was winded.

Today I intended to do my Yasso 800s and hit the goal of 10 repeats.  Last week was my recovery week so I figured I should be relaxed and ready to go this week.  Apparently my legs did not get the message (nor my lungs or heart).  The warm up mile went well enough but during the first half mile I could tell that I was off my normal form.  My breathing was much more labored and I was digging way too deep for the first half mile.  The second half mile went south immediately.  I stopped in disgust with myself and regrouped.  Going to give it another try again tomorrow. 

I am still trying to figure out why my stamina is so low.  The primary candidates:

1 - my body is just naturally in a down cycle

2 - significant stress at work

3 - sleeping poorly

I am biased to the first one but is likely a combination of all three.

Back to the track to do my Yasso 800s.  A few new strategies after my failed attempt yesterday:

1 - mental toughness - stay in the moment.  Don't worry about the next half mile, just focus on the one you are running.

2 - recover between each repeat - get my heart rate as low as possible.

3 - go to bed at 9:00 pm the night before and get the much needed rest.

These strategies got me through 9 half mile repeats @ a 6:31 pace with a 2.5 min, recovery jog in between each repeat.  However I had to dig much deeper than last week The goal was to get 10 repeats in but after the 9th repeat it was clear that I had emptied the tank taking my heart rate up to 176 bpm.  My recovery jog at the end I usually run a 8:30 pace with my heart rate right around 140, which feels effortless.  Today the recovery jog kept me above 150, although it was not hard it certainly was niot effortless.

Its got to be a down week and I will pull out of it as I usually do.

Run up city creek canyon.  Took it nice and slow on the way up with a little bit of a push the last quarter mile up the steepest part of the run.

I've caught a cold and it has made its way into my chest.  Alot of caughing a weezing during th run.  I wan't to get at least 20 in today but my chest was tight during the whole run and it seemed harder and harder to get enough oxygen.