Sunday, March 30, 2014

Carlsbad 5K - I'm burned out

Update - 6:40 pm on Sunday.

It's been about 12 hours since the race (7:05 am) and I'm still sore, lethargic and tired. I've accomplished nothing today. I had a ton of work to do and I've done none of it.  Instead I'm watching the Padres opening game vs. the Dodgers (at Petco) which is a good game so far.  Padres hanging tough with Cashner on the mound.

As of tomorrow morning there are three weeks left until the Boston Marathon.  I've been working hard for about 12 weeks, after taking a full month after CIM.  I ran a total of about 40 miles or so between Dec 9th and Jan 9th. I then jumped back into 60 mile weeks (that's one sort of 0-60).  

While difficult at first, that seemed to be working for about the first 6 weeks.  The single best workout I had this 12 week season was at the end of week 6 when I ran with Bobby Caughey 20 miles at about 7:15/mile. The first 10 we did right a 7:00 and the next 10 at 7:30.  I felt good and strong.  I was so excited I ran 10 hilly miles the next day. And a 10 mile trial run (hard) the day after. Then a hard track workout, followed by tempo two days later, and so on for three weeks (7,8 and 9) where more and more workouts did not go as planned and I felt like I was getting slower.

At the same time, I was determined to lose weight, believing that was "the final frontier" for performance increase.  I went from 177 lbs to 172 during that first 6 weeks, and down to 167 during weeks 7-9.  Ten full pounds in 9 weeks during heavy training.  But I was, I think, in some sort of denial during those three weeks. I was beginning to miss my goals in my workouts, but figured I just needed a few easy days to bust out a great performance.  Prior to the SD Half, which I'd been obsessing on and wanted to do really well in, I decided I had to double down on weight loss and really cut back the week prior. 

Then - the disaster that was the SD Half; I ran over 5 min slower than the year prior - after all that work in the past 12 months and the great marathon in December.  The two following weeks (10, 11) I was still in shock, began eating more and hoping that would do the trick. We were now in the height of intense training, and my "MP" of 6:50 was impossible for me to run.  I was back at 7:00 miles, and those were really hard to do. I had to push myself continually into the red during the long intervals (1200, 1600) on the track and was constantly running for 20-30 min at 95% of my max HR during workouts.  On the day of 4 mile warmup, 8 mile MP and 4 mile easy, I was at 160 bpm (94%) for nearly all of it. This is not a MP workout, but a V02Max intensity and I knew it. 

10 days ago I ran with Jessica and, with her help, managed to sort-of make it through the step tempo.  Last Wednesday I tried to do the step tempo while I was back in DC on the treadmill and could not manage.  My HR was not super high, but I was just burned out and felt exhausted.  My HR was actually low.  Yesterday I could not do the easy MP from miles 2-7 on the long run.  I was struggling to just do the 7:15 miles.  Then there was Mt. Soledad, which I sort of crawled up. I was sort of mean and angry all day yesterday and I'm not all that proud of it either.  I'm just not feeling myself at all. 

Finally there was today. I woke up super sore in my quads (for a first time - which I attribute to running downhill). I could barely even warm up prior to the 5K, and of course, after one fast sub-6 min mile I once again went up to the 160 BPM max and chugged along at 7:00/mile.

I'm seriously considering taking tomorrow, or maybe Tuesday, off completely, Thursday too, and begin my taper tonight.  I'm going to hold it to 50 miles this week and 40 next week and 35 the last week and see what happens in Boston.


6:30 am - cloudy prior to the start

Plan:  2 mile warmup, then Carlsbad 5K...at "marathon pace"
Actual: 2 mile warm up then 5K as..5:56/6:54/7:02 - 6:34 average
Conditions:   cool, cloudy
Morning weight/sleep: 5 hours sleep, morning 170.2/9.2
Stretching today: trigger point prior to driving up





How it felt: I had trouble walking this morning.  My legs were so sore after the long downhill from Mt. Soledad and the overall fatigue of yesterday's run.  I debated not doing it at all, but decided "what the hell".  I drove up at 5:45 and got me bib and jogged around for 2 x 9min miles.  I then went back to my car (parked at the Albertson's on Carlsbad Village Road) and dropped my sweats off.  I ran into Maureen Friend who was doing all 20KM (all the races).  She seemed really nice. 

I was sore in my quads and of course my tendon. I was just sore all over and wondering what the day would bring. I went out with the crowd and ran a 5:56 first mile.  Whoopee! felt good running that fast...but alas not to last.  My HR then did the familiar speed up and and fatigue set in. Oh - and the second mile is slightly uphill running back from Tamarak to downtown Carlsbad. I'm OK these days running along at my lactate threshold of 160 BPM and crusing. The only variable is what speed that is for any given day. Today was no picnic and I never put myself in race mode except the last few hundred meters where I pushed a bit down the hill to the finish.  




Nutrition
Breakfast:  banana bread, canned peaches, cliff bar, apple

Lunch:

Last night's Dinner: Top sirloin steak, spaghetti, cookies, salad