Mayday Mayday!!!!!

Had a tough training week last week. 80 or so miles. A nice comfortable 32 miles on Saturday and then a horrendous 21 miles Sunday. I kind of had a feeling that Sunday was going to be a bad run. All week long my runs sucked. I wasn't getting any sleep either. But I figured I would just tough it out and eventually I would feel fine.

Plan B

I started off OK. The weather was prefect - mid 40's with clouds. I set the GPS to run 21 miles @ 8:30 pace - usually fairly easy to maintain 8:30's during a training run no matter how bad I feel. Anyway, everything was going great for the first 8 miles. Except for some reason the 8:30's were a bit harder to maintain. Most times I use the GPS "virtual trainer" to make sure I don't run too fast so I don't wear myself out on these runs. This run, however, it took a little bit of effort to maintain the pace. The next thing I kn0w I'm out of power. I didn't bonk. I just couldn't really run anymore. So I had to pretend I was at the end of a 100 mile run and go into survival mode. I walked 1/10th of every mile for a little bit, then I ran 2 mile and walked .15 of a mile. Eventually I started feeling a little bit better, although I ended up finishing my run 20 minutes slower than I wanted to. But I learned a lot on this run. Be patient. Your legs will come back. Keep your nutrition up and you will be fine. It wasn't a disaster, it was actually very beneficial. Now I just need an easy week to get all my systems running strong as the 100 miler isn't all that far away.

Next up...Bridle Trails 50K in Kirkland. And I am going to run easy, nothing faster than 8:00 minute miles!!! I have to keep telling myself that.