Running is a means and never merely an end

5 miles at Western. I planned on 6, but I was a dummy and waited till the middle of the day, so it was like 90 degrees and I was just dying of the heat. I cut it a little after 5 and then did 4x100m strides, then got in the river and swam around for a while to cool off/cool down.

Bad. Bad bad bad on a number of levels, wow. I ran Buchanan loop and everything was fine, then went out down Webster rd to run to the highschool, around, and back up....about halfway to the high school everything went bad and I just started feeling exhausted. I Stopped at McNair rd to rest for a minute, then once I got to the high school I stopped twice more, then again on McNair on the way back. Averaged 8:22 but I stopped so many times in there to rest, which is pretty much embarrassing. It was toasty but I don't think it was the heat that got me, I just felt really awful and lathargic in general.

Again...bad bad bad. Dang it, I don't know what is going on. I went with my mom in the car to her office downtown (woke up early to beat the heat), then planned to run a Courthouse/downtown loop (3.5 miles) then all the way back home (3.8 miles). Again, things started out fine for the first 3 miles or so, then everything just went bad and I started feeling pretty rough. But I didn't have my car and was like 4 miles away from home whether I was feeling it or not, so I just had to keep trucking. I guess that was good, so I couldn't give myself an out. The way back home is mostly uphill, so that wasn't helpful...but I kept going till McNair again (like half a mile from home), took a breather for the final big hill before my house, then hit the hill and finished.

I'm wondering if my iron may be low... 3 sucky runs in a row where I started out alright and rapidly got tired? Sounds like what all my teammates who are iron-defficient dealt with, but for longer of course. I don't know when I can get it checked, but in the meantime, I am going to start being intentional about eating iron-rich foods just in case.

First workout of the summer!! And it actually went really well, contrary to the rest of this week (I did eat some red meat and my collard greens (iron) last night...just sayin). Went to the rec for this fartlek.

2 miles warm up, then 6 x (2 min on, 2 min off), 2 miles cool down. My total average was 7:58 including WU/CD, but those middle 3 miles were 7:26, 7:27, 7:14. The "on" was supposed to be 7:08 pace, but I definitely misguaged that and ended up doing more like 6:30 pace. But that's fair because "off" was supposed to be 8:41, and was probably more like 9 flat. Felt kind of fun to get some pop in my legs!

Full-body bodyweight circuit afterwards. Special attention to my hamstrings for prehab.