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August 25, 2004
Tired Tempo
I did a tempo run this morning and my legs were tired and that's the truth. It was bound to happen. :)
I actually didn't feel that bad, but the legs were a tad heavy and the pace probably wasn't as quick as usual. I started with a 15 minute warmup and then did 15 minutes at marathon tempo (6:50-7:10), followed by a 5 minute jogging rest and then another 15 minutes of marathon tempo, all topped off with 10 minutes of cooldown. It was a total of 60 minutes of running or about 8 miles. Like I said, I was probably running on the high end of the goal pace, but that was fine by me this morning.
I suspect my weary legs are a result of several weeks of marathon training. Luckily this is a bit of a down week in terms of my long run. Saturday's run is only 13 miles instead of building on the 19-20 I did last weekend. I think this rest week is coming at just the right time. The next two days of training are pretty easy too, just two shorter distance runs.
Another contributor to my tired legs is likely the fact that I don't get enough sleep at night. I try to get at least 7 hours but it doesn't usually happen. Lately the sleeping situation has been worse than usual with the Olympics on so late. I know that's not good. I know I should be getting more like 8 or 9 hours of sleep a night, but there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day for that. (I know...that's a very original excuse)
Oh well. Just like the dog days of summer, these are the dog days of marathon training for me. Not close enough to the end where I'm tapering and feeling great but far from the days when I was feeling fresh and had a little spring in my step.
Posted by beth at August 25, 2004 7:50 PM