Ups and downs

I haven't posted for a while, training has just been ticking along. After the high of breaking the 30 mins at Raheny, the next few days training went well enough. By Friday however, I was feeling really tired. It may have been that my running had all been pretty fast paced.
Monday I did a 6 mile recovery, Tuesday was speed training with Gary, Wednesday I did hills and Thursday I did my tempo. After 1 mile warmup for the tempo, I did 5 miles at 6.20 pace. I had to stop at 5, I just felt weak and drained, and rather than pushing on I stopped. I ran 2 recovery miles home, only because I had to get home somehow!

I took Friday and Saturday off. The weather was dreadful on Saturday anyway, but as I was out and about in the car I encountered many people out running. They were getting soaked, it was blowing a gale, but they were still out. I felt quite guilty about not getting soaked myself, but part of me thought, are they nuts? Does it mean you are a serious runner if you are out getting soaked in gale force winds, and I am not? Whatever the answer, when I went out Sunday, in the sunshine, I felt pretty good after the rest.

I had intended to do half marathon distance at 7 min miles, but once out I got a bit carried away. I knew the feel of the pace would not be the same at mile 10 as mile 2, and true enough, miles 12 and 13 were pretty tough! I finished on slightly negative splits, last 2 miles at 6.40 for a 1.29.32. The target was 1.30 for the training run, but again I felt a bit worn out at the end, and I worry about my target for the upcoming Bohermeen half the first weekend in March.

Starting into this week I felt a bit better again, I had a few days off work, some good quality sleep, and the weather was better on Monday for my 6 mile recovery. Tuesday morning was beautiful and I contemplated going out for a run, or dong my own speed session on the track as the weather was forecast to get worse as the day went on but I decide to wait and hope it was ok for Garys session at 8pm. By 7.30 it was a full blown storm. I didn't believe anyone would turn up, but they did. Again, I decided not to go into the storm, opting instead for the dry warm house.
I did a good steady hill session Wednesday. Thursday was tempo day again, and I was interested to see how it would go. After the mile warmup, it was off for 7 miles and I decided on a 6.30 pace.
As always, the first two miles were good, holding back a little, and happily the rest went well too. I finished with 6.27 avg pace for the 7 miles, and although it was tough enough, with the run home I covered 9.5 miles, and i felt pretty good.
The test would be the next day. I headed out for 9 miles of hills, and while not at an easy pace, I was looking for about 7.10 avg. I finished 10 miles, and the last two were very tough. Again towards the end I felt like stopping, but kept going, again mostly because I had to get home.

While I seem to be having ups and downs with enthusiasm for the running at the moment, I am still putting in around 45 miles a week, just the days I am running are tending to be longer runs now. Again, for January, I more than doubled the miles I did last year. The weather I believe certainly has an effect on my desire to run some days, and work is pretty busy at the moment too. Looking back over my posts for the last few months, I see that I have gone through at least two of these down cycles before, and I am sure they will pass. I suppose I don't need to run every day, mostly its just six days, feelings of guilt creep in at only 5 done. Maybe this is why the wife reckons I have a problem!

Either way, I am certainly looking forward to the longer evenings and the end to this weather cycle.