fatigue

Well, it looks like I won't make my mileage goal for the week. I won't be too far off it, though, and if the week had been cooler, I might have made it.

This week has been tough, though. I'm again somewhat sleep deprived. It's a combo of studying and drinking too much coffee at my evening shift--I don't usually touch the stuff, but I sometimes need a jolt, and I miscalculate my requirements. Last night was especially poor...I got about four hours of sleep.

It was hard waking up. After my morning shift, I felt like taking a nap, but then I figured I should do at least a few miles with the dog....it was pretty sticky out but we managed 3.6. Then I had a few errands, and then a visit, and then I went to run club. I was dragging even more by this point, and I was late and so missed some of the warm-up. And then I couldn't get into it. Hopefully this doesn't become a habit. Speedwork seemed to be a distant possibility.

But, when it came down to it, something clicked. We had 400M repeats and they were hard, but not as hard as I remember doing them before.

1:27
1:27
1:32
1:27
1:30
1:28
1:29
1:24
1:33
1:30

I was going to do just 8, and pushed it, but then decided to do two more...the 2nd last one was definitely the hardest. All in all, it went ok, and I think I'll be going to bed soon.

Meanwhile...I went back through my log to figure out what I used to do a similar workout in, but I guess all my 400M repeats on track/road predate the start of my log (I had lost an earlier one)...anyway, looking back through those entries made me feel a trifle nostalgic about my runs back in Maryland. Yes, it was usually too hot and humid (even in Oct!) and it's way better having the running club here than running on my own over there, but I had better terrain to run on there. A lot of dirt and gravel (and solitude)...I miss seeing some of the things I saw regularly or occasionally and watching how things changed day to day. I mean more in terms of scat, not the change of seasons. "Oh, this wasn't here yesterday." And there were carcasses too, even deer carcasses, and I would track them as they decomposed and were dragged about by scavengers. It was really quite interesting. A lot of the carnage was concentrated around one particular loop I used to do speedwork on--there were three or four deer carcasses there for whatever reason last fall (it was close to a hunting zone, but the deer probably spooked, and fled, and got hit by traffic). The smell was horrible at first, but after a few weeks it died down.

Here, though, there are many more people to look at instead. It's probably healthier to look at people rather than so many slowly-exposed bones.

I did notice, though, that my mileage was lower about this time last year...that's what I'd figured, but it's neat to see it confirmed.