A.M. Had an odd night. For some reason had a problem going into deep sleep. Could be several reasons. Congested nose from the cold, warmer temperatures in the house, late nap the day before, or the effects of running fast two days in a row. Nevertheless, I woke up on my own. Come to think of it I was feeling very similar to the morning of St. Jude Marathon in 2007. So maybe 2:30:32 was a bummer race after all. If so, it would be quite encouraging. Decided to run just one 2.5 tempo today to let the body heal better. Felt odd. Rather sluggish in the warmup. Then once I started running fast I liked it. But I did not like the gas mask suffocation feeling that came from the congestion once I started going fast. It was cooler in the morning, but that gas mask I think drove my HR up a bit. Ended up doing 14:34 with the peak HR of 157. Towards the end it was fairly stable at 156 at 5:48 pace. This is about 4 bpm higher than normal, I'll blame it on the congestion. There was also a feeling of mild fatigue from the leftovers of the cold. When I finished the tempo I was very unmotivated to run. The loss of drive seemed to be coming from the nose congestion. So I dragged at almost 9:00 pace for a while. About 5 miles into the run I just felt like I wanted to lay down on the ground and take a nap. I would have done it except I knew of the abundance of insects in that area, and also that I needed to get home in a timely manner to start the day. But then as I went along the motivation began to return so I gradually sped up to around 7:10 in the last couple of miles. Total time for 10.1 was 1:14:47. Then ran 2 more with Benjamin in 16:15. Paced him through a quarter in 76 mid-run, that is 5:04 pace, mind you. I had to work, especially with a congested nose and giving splits every 100 meters. Which were: 18 - 19.5 - 19.5 - 19. I am excited about this. He is only 10.5. I ran 500 in 1:45 at 11.5, and then 300 in 58. In the last year his quarter speed just took off. A year ago he was barely breaking 90. I have a feeling 3 years down the road he'd be doing "Daddy, give me five" during my mile time trial. P.M. 0.5 with Joseph in 5:23. 2 with Jenny in 19:05. Julia ran 1.5 with us in 14:14.
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