Not My Day

I had my first bad workout in a while. I was planning to do a 12 mile run with 6 at tempo pace. Lately, 6:15 - 6:18 has felt about like tempo pace. I've been able to hold that without a lot of trouble. It feels hard at the end, but not too bad, and nothing like a race. Every tempo run, I've felt like I could have run a couple more miles at that pace, maybe more.

Well, Wednesday that streak ended. I planned to do 6 miles at 6:15. It was wet, windy, and a muggy 60 degrees, but that shouldn't have done me in like it did. I totally tanked at 4.5 miles and barely kept it below 6:20 pace. I had to completely stop. I don't know. I'm just chalking that up to the fact that it wasn't my day. I hope that's all it was.

The next day's 11 mile trail run felt great. My total mileage this week is pretty high at 83 miles. So, I hope it was just a bad day. We all have them right? I'll have to admit that I am losing a little confidence since I'm not cranking out the super fast 200s and 400s any more. I was very confident while focused on 5k training. But marathon training is a different animal. I could really test my 5k fitness any given week on the track. Marathon fitness, not so much. I've typically used tempo runs and long runs to feel marathon fitness. And it's just a guess.

Well, my long runs have been ok. I've done some marathon pace runs that felt hard, but ok. My normal long runs have not totally drained me. I've felt fine afterwards. But Wednesday's tempo run... The others have been great. Yeah, unless it happens again, I'm just going to say that Wednesday wasn't my day.