Meltdown

Yesterday's 10 mile with 7 at marathon pace went fine with the average of the run clocking in at 5:52 pace. I think I'm starting to hone in on a goal pace for Chicago and I think it's name is 5:52. I need to start extending this Monday run in the next few weeks as I build towards Chicago.

After being somewhat encouraged by yesterday's showing, it all came crashing back to earth during my planned 17 miler today. For whatever reason, I just didn't have it today. I wasn't feeling especially good even as early as mile 2, and perhaps I let some of those negative creep into my psyche and ruin this run for me. Last week I wined and complained about the rain that came during this run. Today there wasn't any rain, but you couldn't tell it by looking at me. It looks like the humidity is back in Chicago. I was a mess. The shoes were squishy by about mile 10 and everything was squishy well before that.

At the halfway point, I finally got the courage to look at my pace and found it be 6:50. At that point, if it was at all possible, I probably would have bailed on the rest of the run because I was feeling horrible. One of the pluses (or minuses) of a point to point run like my runs into work, is that there is no option to bail on a run. Once that trains drops you off, you're on your own. So with that knowledge I pressed on and somehow, I really have no idea how, maintained that 6:50 the rest of the run. I say that because it felt like I was absolutely crawling for the last 5 miles of this run.

So while I don't exactly what caused today's problems, I am not completely discouraged by it. It is somewhat encouraging that despite being off today, I was still able to maintain what ultimately was a sub 3 hour marathon pace for 17 miles. A few years ago, I would have killed for a good run like this. Now, all I can say, is that they all aren't going to pretty, and hopefully, they won't often be this ugly either.