In my very first blog post I promised, in other words, to post the good, the bad, and the ugly. So, here's the ugly.

After the end of a CRAZY semester, I hit the ground running. I couldn't wait to get back into training. I went from monthly mileage of 20 miles (read another post about a near-amputation and pneumonia) to 80 miles in April. Now 80 miles a month isn't anything so spectacular, but I made the mistake of forgetting to put it in perspective. Last Tuesday I went for a 5 mile run and BONKED. Bonked like I have never bonked before.  I ran about 2.5 miles (thankfully I was on a treadmill) and I felt worse than I did at mile 25 of a marathon. I didn't have the energy to walk or stretch. I took the elevator up one floor to my condo, I grabbed a banana and I laid on the ground. It was PATHETIC (and no, I'm not the type to be unduly hard on myself, it really was a disaster).

That day I was also the most irritable I had been in YEARS. I'm a sunshine, happy kind of person. I'm that obnoxious friend who always looks for the silver lining. Yes, some could even call me perky. But not on Tuesday. I was cranky. I was bitter. On Wednesday I went shopping with a friend (another psychologist) and as we were driving and I was cursing at drivers, she had the courage to say, "It sounds like you have a lot of anger today" in perfect therapist speak.  She was right and that made me even more mad.  Later that day I had the pleasure of catching up with a friend from college:

Jake: Hey! How are you?!

Me: Eh. I'm pissy. I'm in a bad mood.

Jake: What? Are you allowed to do that?!

Yes. On Tuesday and Wednesday I was allowed to do it. I did it rather well in fact. I hated being in such a bad mood, but nothing (not even running!    ) could break me out of my funk. Add to this the fact that I was EXHAUSTED. And anxious. My heart was pounding out of my chest, just racing. I couldn't relax, even when I was going to sleep (and I am a champion when it comes to sleeping). I realized that for the last few days I'd been sleeping terribly, having a hard time going to sleep and waking up in the middle of the night. Well, my dear readers, my post title gave it away. At some point  on Wednesday, a lightbulb went off. Decreased performance. Low mood. Fatigue. Increased resting heart rate.  Insomnia. Classic signs of overtraining.

I rested all day on Thursday (after sleeping  12 hours Wednesday night!). I slept another 12 hours Thursday night. Friday I ran 5 deliberately slow miles and today I'm resting before a 12 mile bike/8 mile run tomorrow. For now I'm going to increase my rest days from one day a week to two. I'm going to reorganize my workouts so that I don't have two hard workouts together (currently following Hal Higdon's Intermediate Spring Training which has Saturday as Tempo/Fartlek days, followed by a Sunday long run). I'm also going to temporarily cut my hill workout. At this point in my training, I think mileage is more important than hills, and Pittsburgh is so hilly, I can't avoid them. Instead of having a separate hill workout, I'll just handle the hills on my regular runs.

So cheers to training, but keeping it in perspective. Happy running    (notice the smile's back!)