Listening to your body

I was exhausted last night.

Miraculously woke at 7AM yesterday morning, even after a late night (wine pairing dinner at Ten Tables -- dericious!) Went for a 7+ mile run (marginal -- right ankle has been feeling a bit wonky and it flared up around mile 4, and legs were feeling pretty heavy on the last mile), then to work. Client in the evening. A little work at the computer after dinner. And then I just hit the wall. Didn't even want to go downstairs for a snack.

That was at at a quarter of ten.

I guess I should have just gone to bed, but I ended up reading until 10:30 before killing the lights.

At midnight, I finally gave up and got up, had a drink, had a snack, did a little more reading and looked at some pictures (in an actual photo album, looking at my phases of long hair) and then finally back in bed around a quarter of one.

I really thought I was past this not falling asleep business. Oh well. It continues to be rough since getting back from Chicago.

Anyway, no surprise when I woke up "late" around 7:40am, still tired.

Options:

1. run the same 7+ mile route as the previous day for comparison purposes. Was I just having an off day? Was I running too fast? Would my foot start hurting at the same point? Would it hurt at all?
2. run something around 5 miles, maybe at a tempo pace. Y'know, try and work on that VO2max thing by training at my lactate threshold. And stuff.
3. run less than 4 miles (distance of onset of foot pain) as a recovery run, or simply training at a level where I was fairly confident I wouldn't exacerbate any existing injuries.
4. Skip the workout. Turn it into a rest day and get to the office relatively early.

The earliest I could probably start a run would be a bit after 8am. Then cooldown, stretching, a shower, and then the drive up to the office.

I still didn't get into the office much before 9. I'm not sure how that happens.

Still pretty beat today. I'm rationalizing that I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night, after probably getting less than 6 hours the night before. I know there are plenty of folks out there who are completely functional with that much sleep, but I've always needed closer to 9 hours for peak operating conditions.

And there's the stuff that I had gleaned from what little I'd already read in the book. Basically, train "opportunistically" and to your own body. It makes it ok for me to adjust for other activities and commitments. And most importantly, to adjust the training based on how my body is feeling. So I took the hint about the ankle not feeling so good, and probably not getting enough sleep and I ran (or rather, didn't run) with it.

And I think it was the right decision. More rest for the hamstring. (which I tweaked again playing pickup on Sunday.) The ankle is feeling a little better, or rather, I'm not feeling my ankle so much today. I think you're not supposed to notice the bones in you leg and foot when you're doing your everyday stuff, right?

So the plan is now to just do a short run tomorrow, maybe 3-4 miles and then do a long run Saturday, more than the 8.6 I ran last week, but almost certainly less than the 12 that's currently in the plan. I'm thinking 10, but we'll see how it feels.

On the down side, it was in the 30s this morning, although above freezing and sunny. Whereas tomorrow it's supposed to rain, possibly snow (?!) in the morning so it looks like I'll be hitting the gym tomorrow. (And as much as I hate the gym, it's probably good for me to do some hamstring strengthening exercises anyway.) Saturday, light rain all morning, and I just hope they're wrong. Or at least if it rains, it really is light rain.