Less enthusiasm than last week
Last week when I got back from my “long” run for the week I was pumped. I felt great the entire run, unfortunately, I can’t say the same for this week’s run. In the third mile I started getting a cramp, which I was able to nip in the bud, but it took a good quarter mile of slowing my pace and really concentrating on my breathing, which is fine, except I wasn’t exactly burning it up as it was. I did 5.25 in 40 minutes. Not too stellar.
I can think of a lot of reasons why the run wasn’t as quick as I’d have liked for it to have been. I didn’t sleep well last night. I lifted weights at 7pm. I went for a semi-long walk with my wife and my son before lifting weights. There was some car out there that I saw in multiple neighborhoods that I thought was the paper guy, but towards the end I got the impression maybe not so much. There didn’t seem to be a logical pattern to the different places I’d run across him. Now I’m not paranoid, and I wasn’t jumping in bushes or anything, but at 5:30 am in the middle of a long run, I made sure he only saw me once :)
All-in-all, I mostly felt ok through the run. This is the second run in a row where I started getting a cramp, which really sucks. I’ve managed to avoid that pain in the side up until this week. I’m not sure what’s going on there, I don’t think I’ve changed anything. Maybe I’m not drinking enough water. Maybe I’m running too fast, which is throwing my breathing off. Slowing down and really concentrating on my breathing is what made it go away today, though it kept trying to come back.
Last week I proclaimed that maybe I was indeed still a runner, this week, I’m saying let’s see if I get through this half marathon in November and then take it from there.