Today's run didn't really go as planned. Before I get into that, I need to make a public confession. I ate like crap yesterday. It wasn't so much the meals (they weren't great, but wouldn't have been too bad on their own) as it was the candy. Hi, I'm Topher and I love candy. Love. Candy. Mmmm, candy. I ate too much of it yesterday. I had gummies (my weakness), M & M's, and Girl Scout Cookies. I only had 3 thin mints, but I ate way too many gummy worms. I was bad. Really bad.
I think my will was worn down from my broken sleep pattern. I am at my best when I am in a routine. Starting Friday night and continuing on through Monday night, my routine was systematically torn to shreds by a stomach virus raging through my children. I'm back on the wagon today. I got a full night of good sleep last night. All of the calories I took in yesterday are coming back out today.
Today's Food: 2 Scrambled Eggs for breakfast. 1 Nature Valley Granola Bar for lunch + something vegetably. A reasonable portion of whatever L fixes for dinner. No candy, no cookies. I put it in writing so I have to stick to it.
Today's Run: I was still a little worn down from the weekend's missed sleep. Yesterday's candy binge didn't help either. My shins were hurting a little, too, from pushing myself so hard Monday. I wasn't really feeling it this morning but I got up and did it anyway and I'm glad I did. I was set to do the week 4 workout from my speed improvement plan. I didn't really do it as written. I spent more time just running along than I did paying attention to what my watch was telling me to do. I just didn't feel up to pushing myself this morning. I was a little angry at myself for yesterday's poor eating habits and punished myself by running all out a couple of times, once getting up to a 6 minute mile pace and holding it for about a minute. That hurt. I don't know how those Ethiopian and Kenyan guys/gals do it. The world record 5K is 12:37.35. That's 4:04/mile. The world record Marathon was run in 2007 by Haile Gebrselassie in 02:03:59 for an average pace of 4:45/mile. Un. Be. Liev. A. Ble. I'm not even sure I could maintain that pace for 15 seconds.
I did end up pushing myself a little toward the end of the run, finishing pretty strong with a 09:18/mile pace for the last 3 minutes. Given my race results, I think I'm ready to start trying to increase my pace to 9:00/mile. I'm not sure if I should do it incrementally by shooting for 9:30/mile and then 9:00/mile or if I should just go for the gusto and jump from 10:00 to 9:00. I'm going to finish out this week 4 routine on Saturday and then decide how to proceed from there.
Today's Stats: I did 3.76 miles in 39 minutes for an average pace of 10:21/mile. I have to say, it's nice to say that I was taking it pretty easy this morning and ran 10:21/mile. Just two weeks ago, I averaged 10:23/mile over the course of 3.5 miles and was pushing myself pretty hard to do that.
Next up: I didn't make it to the pool yesterday as I had hoped. If I can get another full night of sleep tonight, I plan on going in the morning. I want to swim again on Friday and then Saturday morning I'll be running again. My plan is to push myself pretty hard and attempt to cover 4 miles in 39 minutes.
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