Can't win em all

Fri: 7/24/09
AM: 3 w/u, 6 mile tempo (5:30, 5:29, 5:29, 5:37, 5:36, 5:30) 2c/d
Total = 11 miles
This was a rough one out there today. Slept in a little because I didn't have to work this afternoon hoping the extra sleep would help. I decided to drive out the NCR trail because it's flat, marked and shaded. It was super humid and the 3 mile warm-up had me drenched before I even started. The intended goal was to run 5:15-20 the first mile and see if I couldn't cut it down. I hit the first 800 in 2:40 and was feeling easy and thought I was on the fast track to a good day. However, I hit the mile in 5:30 and was a little surprised. I picked up the effort and thought I was on my way to a 5:20 first mile. Again, I was a little surprised when the watch read 5:30 and at this point I got a little discouraged. The next mile was more of the same and I turned around hoping that I might have been running slightly uphill and the return trip would yield 5:20 miles. I felt the effort stayed the same but I was dissapointed to see 5:37 on the watch. I soldiered on and ran another 5:36 before kicking it home the last 800. I really didn't feel good once I got passed 2 or 3 miles. My legs felt tired and a little heavy and I felt like I was forcing things.

It's funny, I had this conversation with an athlete I coach the other day. As runners, we always want to set the world on fire each workout. We have prescribed paces on our schedules and we daydream on easy runs about how we're going to kick butt on the next workout. Sometimes, the body has different ideas and you can't beat yourself up over it. The thing to remember about training is that you're always (hopefully) out there with a goal. Ideally, you accomplish the intended goal despite what paces you are running. Today, the goal was to run 6 miles of threshold. While my recent 8k performance suggest this should be 5:20's, that just wasn't the case. Despite not running as fast as I had hoped, I still accomplished the goal. I'll take it and move on!

PM: 6 mile run (42:00)
Melanie and I ran up to Druid Hill, looped around the lake and returned home. She continued on to make it 8 miles and I gladly stopped back at home base. I felt terrible the whole run and really had to slog through this one. Pretty rough.