Ambitions Stalled

Time: 48:20
Distance: ~8 miles

W/u: 18:49 for 2.38 miles
W/o: 3 x 2 miles in 5:10 to 5:15 (3 mins rest)
C/d: 22:12 for 2.63 miles

Today I had these great ambitions to crush my second workout of the week. The session on Monday was a great motivator and I wanted to keep things rolling. My stated goal of 110 miles is for no real reason other than training really hard this week. It doesn't help when the average daily temps are 90+. That was a huge factor in today's workout.

I showed up to the Old Bell parking lot at McAlpine knowing I had 3 good efforts of 2 miles each. The pace wasn't anything unreasonable, but the heat index was already pushing upper 80s. I planned well and brought a water bottle that Meagan was going to drop at the start of the Footlocker Course.

Splits:
5:13, 5:11 (3:01);
5:19, 1:36 at 5:30 pace so I stopped.

It wasn't going to happen today. Too hot. And, I just wasn't on. The opening 2 miles in 10:24 felt like I was sprinting. Aerobically I felt relaxed, but the legs had a difficult time turning over that quick. Since I'm posting this over a week late, I've had the time to think about what went wrong and to link to a post by Stephen Spada. He tells a recap of a workout when he was just feeling it. It's that feeling when the workout can't seem to get hard enough. You're hitting the splits and could go faster if necessary. That's a great feeling that gives one confidence for the next race. It's something that wasn't taking place during my workout. I wasn't necessarily "off," but I certainly wasn't "on."

The 800 workout on Monday took more out of my legs than I thought. I was pretty wrecked afterward and trying another hard workout so soon probably wasn't the best idea. Jeff Gaudette has created a cool, informative diagram that explains the purpose of a training cycle. I was working out when I should have been recovering. I recommend taking a look at the link and actually listening to the process.