The Wall

I hit a few bricks this morning, and it was not a lot of fun.

The run started out as a tempo run, and I slowly made my way (mostly) up the street from my house to a small trail that links the housing area I am in to main post. As I neared the 1 mile mark at 8:10 on the watch, I started to pick it up and tried to keep a hefty speed for a good while. As I passed through the "Follow Me" golf course and headed through the JR Officer houseing to the school that my youngest goes to, I kept pushing to keep the speed up. I saw a runner up ahead and I vowed to close the distance; maybe even catch him. As I got near the Infantry Chapel, I could see the distance shrinking, and I knew I was tring to keep the speed up. I got to the 5 points corner near the Baseball field, and turned a sharp right. It was time to start heading back.

But somewhere just before mile 4, I really felt it start to hit me. The legs are doing good, but the body isn't pushing it. I worked on form, and tried to correct breathing problems. I thought of all the reasons that I was feeling like I was crashing. Almost on top of mile 5 I could feel how slugish my torso was working as compared. Lack of sleep, a change in my diet, a lack of motivation, all adding up and then as I got back to the trail that leads me to my housing area, and eventually home, I did what I have never done in 19 years. I walked. After 1 minute, I started up again ... but I couldn't make up the time, and after anouther 2 minutes, I walked again. I worked on breathing and told myself, I only have a mile to go. Then, I was able to put it all back together after about a 2 minute walk, and I rolled on out and down the street to my house.

Today, I know that I need to get the rest that I deserve and that I need to keep up my nutritional intake for I am training, and i need my diet to support my training.

Miles: 6.9; Tempo (Miles 2 and 3), Time 59:32, Overall pace: 8:38.