Week -13, Days 1-7

Shame on me, yet again. Between work and grad school homework, my blogging time always seems to slip away. Like this week, my first poor week in marathon training. I can blame the weather (which did play a wee role...I despise the treadmill, and yet I can't bring myself to head out in flooding and lightning; New England weather has SUCKED so far this summer), but it's not entirely to blame. Sigh. Is there a way to make more hours in the day?

Scheduled for Week -13, Monday: OFF.
Scheduled for Week -13, Tuesday: 6 miles.
Scheduled for Week -13, Wednesday: 5 (3-4x long hill repeats).
Scheduled for Week -13, Thursday: 4 miles.
Scheduled for Week -13, Friday: 4 miles.
Scheduled for Week -13, Saturday: 3 miles.
Scheduled for Week -13, Sunday: 8 miles (10k race speed).

Actual for Week -13, Monday: OFF
Actual for Week -13, Tuesday: OFF
Actual for Week -13, Wednesday: 6.5 in 1:03
Actual for Week -13, Thursday: 2.7 in 25:12
Actual for Week -13, Friday: OFF
Actual for Week -13, Saturday: OFF
Actual for Week -13, Sunday: 2.5 miles.

Dear God. It's shameful. This is my first really poor week of training. I could give a million excuses: the weather, I was tired, my homework, my job sucks...on and on. While all of those may be true, the fact is that this was just an extremely busy week and my body was not responding well. When I continuously sleep through my alarms and am biting everyone's heads off, I know it's not good. Sometimes you just need a recharge, I guess. So, I suppose this past week was my recharge. I'm making an effort to get to bed earlier so that waking up in the morning won't be so incredibly painful. I've definitely learned that this is a necessity - 90% of the time that I leave my runs for the evening, they just don't happen. Plus, if I do have energy, I'd like to leave evenings open for weights and abs, if there's time to exercise.

So, lesson learned. More sleep. Try to lose the stress. And RUN.