Month: September 2018

Imagine a huge sigh of relief. That’s me right now.

I did roughly 1000 things differently this week, which isn’t good for figuring out exactly what fixed the problem (or what the actual problem is or was), but the important thing is that I got through my long run.

Weight Check: 163.7 pounds, up 1.6 from last week. I really couldn’t care less. One of the things I did differently was not drinking no calorie soda, just in case there’s something in the artificial sweeteners. Also, I wasn’t drinking them during my last training cycle which (understatement) went just slightly better than my current training cycle. So I did have some regular Mountain Dew and regular Coke. I did limit my caffeine intake a little bit, so it wasn’t like I went straight back to 60 ounces of Mountain Dew every day. I also cut back a bit on beer. I’m still under 164, so I’m not overweight.

Total: 34.05 miles

For the first time since August 20 to 26, the numbers in the 3rd column match the ones in the 2nd column. (OK, with an extra .01 on each run, but you know what I mean.) Huge sigh of relief.

Monday was not as hot, only 68 degrees, but still humid. My legs felt terrible. I’m not sure how I got through all 5 miles, but I did, very slowly.

On Tuesday, the weather was back to completely miserable. My legs weren’t 100%, but they felt a little better than Monday. I tried not to pay attention to my watch, and had no idea what my splits were until I checked the data, and I was kind of surprised that I got faster on each mile. I didn’t feel great, and it was slower than I’d like, but I got through the whole thing, which I don’t take for granted right now

Wednesday was only 66(!) degrees, but still really humid. My legs felt OK. My pace was fairly consistent, though mile 3 was a little slow for some reason. I kept it easy and got through it.

On Friday, it was more miserable weather. My legs felt OK, though. I took it easy with my upcoming long run. I managed to speed up a little bit on each mile. Considering everything, it was a pretty decent run.

Also, I noticed that as the week went on, my average pace had slowly gone down, and I felt like that was a positive sign.

I remember when I first saw that I had 16 miles scheduled for Saturday. I laughed, and it was definitely one of those “laugh to keep from crying” laughs. Considering my last few long runs, I figured I’d be lucky to make it to 13.1 miles. But I figured I’d give it a shot.

The weather wasn’t great, but the clouds at least kept things from warming up too much. My legs felt OK for the most part, and though I definitely felt fatigue on the last two miles, it somehow felt different than the fatigue I’ve experienced in my last few long runs that caused me to cut them short. I’d like to think I could have gotten through one more mile if I had to, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.

I had my watch show the time of day rather than the distance/time/pace for most of the run. So instead of relying on distance, I figured out after I started that I wanted to have Gu at around 8:50, 9:40, and 10:30. It turned out that ended up being 4, 7.85, and 12 miles, which is pretty close to when I would have had them if I had been going by distance.

I’m still not 100% sure what got me completely through this run, but as slow as it was, I’m really happy with it.

My mileage was definitely down this week by design. One of the possible reasons for my troubles is overtraining, and, well, reducing mileage is about the only way to fix that.

This week, I’ll have a very small increase in miles. Also, Monday is October 1, so I guess I’ll do a wrap-up for September. (Spoiler alert: It won’t be a cheerful post.)

My heart is apparently OK. I started running again after a week off, and things have not gotten better. Back to my physician’s office tomorrow.

I did manage one good run last week, so there’s that.

Weight Check: 162.1 pounds, down 2.9 from last week. OK, one good run and some weight loss. So the week wasn’t completely crappy.

Total: 19.13 miles

Sigh.

Since I hadn’t run all week, and I got the green light to resume running on Wednesday, I did a rare Thursday run. The weather wasn’t quite as hot as a few weeks ago but still humid. My legs felt surprisingly good. I expected a little bit of rust, but they held up pretty well, and they were definitely well rested. I was just really happy to be back out there running again. I ran with a smile on my face for the first time since I was in Portland. (Spoiler alert: It didn’t last long.)

Friday was still OK, I guess. The weather was pretty uncomfortable. My legs felt a little off at first. Maybe there was a delay in the rust showing up. After a mile or so, they felt better. I kept the effort easy, but did manage to improve my pace on each mile.

Saturday was a long run. I’ve been struggling on my long runs. The trend continued.

I went to a different greenway due to an event at my usual spot. I also brought a hand held water bottle to make up for there being a lot fewer water fountains. The weather wasn’t great to start with, and then with no clouds it warmed up really fast.

I had Gu at 4.3 and 8.5 miles. I drank some of my water at every mile.

My legs felt OK for a while, then after 9 miles I really started feeling fatigue. I walked the second half of mile 10, slowly jogged mile 11, and mile 12 was mostly walking, and I realized I wouldn’t be able to go any further. I did go out a little too fast. There’s a downhill path from the parking lot to the actual greenway that I ran down at the very beginning, plus I had to speed up a little to get around some other people. Still, I hit a wall a lot earlier than I’d like, and clearly something is still wrong.

Once again, wait and see.

My physician doesn’t know what’s wrong with me. His best guess, though, is my heart. So, yeah. I’ve got an appointment with a heart specialist on Wednesday to do a stress test. Also, no running until then. Running-wise, it was a pretty short week.

On the plus side, I’m pretty sure that, even if I was perfectly healthy, I wouldn’t have been able to run 18 miles (that’s what was originally on the schedule) with Hurricane Florence around. So far, lots of rain, lots of wind, but *knock on wood* nothing too terrible.

Weight Check: 165.0, down exactly one pound from last week. Considering how little I was able to run, I’ll gladly take it.

Total: 8.12 miles

Monday, the weather felt like a sauna, and my legs felt really tired. I decided to cut it short, and made it through 5 miserable miles without any walk breaks.

I talked to my coach late Monday, and she modified my schedule to just easy 3-5 mile runs for the rest of the week. I figured a treadmill run would at least give my legs a break, so that’s what I did Tuesday. (Of course, after seeing my physician Tuesday afternoon, I had to cancel the rest of my runs for the week.) My legs felt fine. I kept it at 12:00/mile the whole time. It was mentally excruciating, and my legs probably could have gone a little further, but my mind couldn’t, so I just did 5K.

And that’s it for the week.

Now, I wait to see what the heart specialist says. I’ll be honest, I’ve been focused on Florence, and maybe it’s better, because, well, when you start talking about my heart…as I told one of my co-workers, if you blow out your knee and can’t run any more, absolute worst case scenario is that you need to start using a cane. Heart problems can have much more serious consequences.

Not running sucks. Not knowing when (if?) I’ll be able to run again is even worse. We’ll see.

Things didn’t get better last week. In fact, they got worse. I’ve got an appointment with my physician tomorrow to figure out what the hell is going on. I expect some level of fatigue, but I’m just hitting a wall during my long runs, and it’s happening way earlier than I’ve ever experienced before. Sure, during my marathons it got really freaking hard after about the 20 mile mark, but right now it’s hitting me way before then, and it seems to be getting worse instead of better.

This sucks. If I could drop down to the half, I would, but the NYC Half is a totally separate event in the spring. Good thing the full doesn’t have a time limit.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, we might get hit by a hurricane later this week.

So, how has your week been?

Weight Check: 166.0, up exactly 2 pounds from last week. I was a day late on my weigh in. It was just a brain fart. I can’t remember the last time I just completely forgot about a weigh in, but yesterday, I did. Gaining 2 pounds isn’t ideal, but considering everything else, this is pretty low on my list of worries.

Total: 35.05 miles

Cutback week? More like setback week.

Monday, the weather was pretty bad. My legs were still a little tired from my previous long run (even if it hadn’t been as long as I had planned). My paces seemed to be a bit random, even considering the hills, but I got through it with a semi-respectable average pace, so I’ll take it.

On Tuesday, the weather still felt like August. My legs felt OK until the last couple of intervals. My paces on the intervals seemed a little inconsistent, but I think it’s mostly because one minute isn’t very long. I walked for about 30 seconds, then jogged for a minute in between. I did push a little harder on the last interval, and it did end up being the fastest one. I walked for about 30 seconds at the beginning of the cool down, then jogged the rest of the time. I extended the cool down a bit to get to 6 miles. Tough workout, but I got through it.

Wednesday, the weather was pretty brutal again. With the hill repeats Tuesday, my legs were tired and my glutes were sore. My pace may have been slow, but it was fairly consistent. It’s a bit disappointing for the last mile to be the slowest, but I got through it.

On Friday, the weather was still pretty terrible. My legs weren’t quite 100%, but they weren’t too bad. I was a little slow, but I didn’t want to push it, since I was really hoping for a good long run on Saturday. I survived.

Saturday was…not good.

Well, I ran slowly for 10 miles, and I still got too tired to go more than 12 miles. Like I said earlier, I feel like it’s getting worse instead of better, and that’s the main reason why I decided I need to see my physician.

I really hope he can figure out what’s going on.

This is the part where I normally talk about the upcoming week, but between my appointment and the hurricane, I have no clue what will happen. Wait and see, I guess.

I’m still not 100% ready to talk about Saturday’s run, but I figure I need to post something anyway. I will say that I’m glad I got my August wrap-up done on Friday.

Weight Check: 164.0 pounds, up 1.6 from last week. Meh. It was a fairly stressful week, which isn’t good for my eating. I guess it could have been worse.

Total: 40.05 miles

No, that’s not a typo under total miles for Saturday. I’ll eventually get to that.

Monday, the weather didn’t feel quite as bad as early in the previous week, but still wasn’t great. My legs were a little tired from my long run, but it wasn’t too terrible. My paces seemed fairly consistent outside of the one mile that was almost all downhill, and I kept the effort easy. I was over a minute faster than the previous Monday’s 7 miler, and it’s nice to see a little bit of improvement.

On Tuesday, the weather wasn’t great, but I’ve seen worse. My legs felt OK for most of the run, with a little bit of (understandable) fatigue near the end. I did stop for water at 4.6 miles, and I took a brief walk break at the beginning of the easy mile at the end. I managed to gradually speed up through the middle section. I’m happy with how it went.

Wednesday’s weather was still pretty miserable. My legs felt OK, though. My pace seemed to fluctuate a lot, even when accounting for hills. I tried to keep the effort easy, although I may have subconsciously pushed a little bit after starting a few minutes later than I’d planned. Overall, a fairly decent run, and none of my paces were too out of the ordinary.

On Friday, the weather was basically the same as Wednesday, which isn’t good. My legs felt fine. I kept a pretty steady pace once I got through the first mile. I didn’t push too hard, though, since I had 17 miles on the schedule for Saturday.

Yeah, about those 17 miles on Saturday…

I still don’t know exactly what to say about this run. I don’t know whether it’s too many miles, lingering effects from my surgery in January, the heat and humidity, the fact that I’m 45 now, or all of the above, but my long runs are not going well. It’s beyond frustrating. My fastest mile was 12:51, and only 2 other miles were sub-13, so it’s not like I was going too fast.

At the beginning of mile 12, after I stopped for water, I just couldn’t run. I walked for the rest of the mile, got some water, and very slowly jogged the last mile.

I stopped for water every mile, and had Gu at 5 and 9 miles (I had originally planned on having one at 13, but by that point, I knew I could only handle one more mile at best and figured I’d just save the 3rd Gu for another day.)

The weather was pretty terrible, and maybe that’s the main reason I bonked. My legs were OK at first, and they just gradually got more and more tired.

The other frustrating thing is that, going back through my runs earlier in the week, things actually went fairly well. I can do my shorter mid-week runs reasonably well, then Saturday rolls around and it’s like I forget how to do a long run. I just don’t know.

I’ve got a cutback week this week. I really hope it helps.