Humbling....at best

Thursday 5/15/08 Part 1 - 60 minutes of Pilates

My legs recovered well with a little help of magnesium before I went to bed last night. Got up this morning and rolled the **** out of them. Pilates kicked my ass again. Maybe it's harder the second day in a row, maybe the room was too hot again, maybe it was due to a sore back from last night.....or all of those things mixed together. My back does feel better now, post Pilates.

Thursday evening 5/15/08 - Track - Mile repeats.
Weather at 5pm 87 degrees, 45% humidity

I ate a banana and took hammer electrolyte replenishments an hour before track. I had been mindful of sipping on water more then I'm used to......but none of it mattered. I got decimated by the heat.

1 mile easy warm up.....(oh this is not so easy. I just kept telling myself, It's ok, this is just the warm up, take it slow)....and that I did.
When I started the whole track was in the sun, and my stupid ass was wearing all black. There was some decent headwind for about 100 yards...felt good but at the same time felt like it was pushing me backwards.
15 mins of drills. 1.25 miles. A$$ kickers, skips, strides and side strides.
My HR is elevated and I'm sweating a lot....this does not feel good.
Time to start the mile repeats; 7:30 pace
1/4 mile, feeling ok.....this is hard but not too hard
1/2 mile...ok this **** is hard now. My HR is soaring to 180...this is too high for my pace. WTF is going on?
3/4 mile.....blow up. I just gave up...and bowed my head in shame....

This is where I ran into Scott H and he was the voice of reasoning. If it wasn't for him I would have said "F@#$ track" and just left. But instead we talked about pacing, the heat and what I wanted to get out of the workout. Not every track workout can hit that 20 min time trial pace....there are other things to factor in. I thought about what he said and decided to run another 2 1 mile repeats, giving good effort but not to worry about pace. I'm glad I didn't time myself because I felt sluggish and slow....yet my HR was staying around 175-180....way too high. All of this made me think of the factors as to why I could not complete my "targeted" workout.

*Heat...this was my first track workout in any kind of heat. I have a history of heat exhaustion to the point of passing out....I don't work well with it. I was hoping the electrolytes would help, which I'm sure they did a little but I think ultimately I just need to train in it more. My body will slowly adjust.
*Caloric deficient for too many days in a row. This I know and even though I ate as I normally would up to track I have nothing stored from previous days. Every day I have depleted and then some....this is not ok and I really need to concentrate on fixing it.
*Too much fatigue. This is two folds, one being nutrition and two being the swim/pilates/hilly bike ride/run I did yesterday. How could I really think I was going to pull off a successful speed workout in hot weather when I had an intense bike/brick the night prior?

Summary , 5 miles
Live and learn right? Today I was OWNED and not by running, or the pacing mind games (as I stayed positive the whole time, with the help from Scott H) or track it's self, but by Nutrition deficient and Heat. I guess in a good way it put my ass in check and made me realize I have a lot to focus on for race day. Humbling experience....