Down for the count!

Its been an up and down last two weeks. Two weeks ago, I finally got my mileage back in the high 40s and I was aiming to push into the 50s the following week. I recovered relatively quickly from the hard effort up in Derry. I was expecting to have really sore hamstrings from the poor traction but ended up battling some quad soreness for about two days. In general, I've been feeling run down lately and just low on energy. My running log entries have lately been populated by a lot of "really tired this morning," which is surprising considering I haven't really upped the mileage yet. I've been running the interval workouts a bit harder than usual, but I don't know if that's the whole story.

Here's a summary of my workouts from the last two weeks (1/28-2/10)


Mon: 30 min. on the elliptical, legs tired, so skipped the core workout
Tue: 10.2 miles, including 3x2000m intervals @ 5:54; ran out of fuel on the c/d jog
Wed: AM - 4.9 miles @ 7:50 pace, easy run, legs feeling better; PM - 30 min. core work
Thu: 9 miles @ 7:29, moderate run on a hilly course, good energy today
Fri: off
Sat: 6 mile @ 11:09, easy trail recovery run
Sun: 17.5 miles @ 7:43, tempo & hill run along the Boston course, tough workout but good variety of paces and terrain
Total: 48.2 miles

Mon: 30 min. on the elliptical, 30 min. core workout; legs beat up from Sunday's run
Tue: 10.2 miles, including 4x1600m @ 5:43, strange workout, felt some heart flutter
Wed-Fri: out with a bad reaction to a vaccine, felt pretty lousy
Sat: 5.2 miles @ 7:15, 1st run after lay-off, legs feel good and run felt easy.
Sun: 21 miles @ 7:33, tough long run, ran with some faster guys at a comfortable pace, but lack of mileage showed in the closing miles.
Total: 36.4 miles

The first long run is one my favorite BAA scheduled workouts. It consists of an easy 4 mile warm-up, 2 mile tempo up the last two Newton Hills on the Boston course, then we turn back and do 6 repeats up Heartbreak before finishing up with a long cool-down. This workout goes by quickly, and after you go up Heartbreak hard 7 times, it just doesn't seem so bad anymore. I managed to hold a 6:15 pace through the tempo portion, which I was frankly surprised I could hold.

Last week started off well on Monday. Then Tuesday, I went for my annual physical and found I needed to get a TDaP (Tetanus, Diptheria, and Pertussis) booster. I proceeded with the Tuesday evening speed workout and found in the middle two mile repeats, my HR was shooting up over 200 and I could feel my legs going into oxygen debt because of the lack of circulation. This was a little worrisome, but it went away during the last interval. I was feeling particularly gassed during my cool-down jog and my left shoulder (injection site) was really starting to hurt. By Wednesday morning, I felt like I had the flu minus the cough and runny nose. The vaccine safety sheet outlines the symptoms, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad! I was bedridden on Wednesday, felt only marginally better on Thursday, and really didn't feel great until Saturday. At least I don't have to deal with this again for another 10 years.

I was a little concerned with my condition going into Sunday's long run. I was meeting up with some guys from my running club and we were planning on doing about 20 miles. These guys are about 25-30 seconds per mile faster than I am, but under normal conditions I would be up for the challenge. However, given the week that I had, I wasn't sure how my body was going to handle it. I cruised through the 1st 14 miles pretty comfortably, but my lack of fitness started to catch up with me over the last 4 miles and for the 1st time in awhile, I found myself struggling to finish a long run. On the positive side, I was still holding a ~7:30 pace. A couple caveats also help me feel less discouraged: I was coming off sick week, my mileage was low, and I haven't done a 20 miler since Philly.

Gotta go catch up on some rest! Lets hope the next couple weeks are better.