It just had to be the last 20+ miler of my training when everything seemed to go wrong at once. Today we ran a 22 miler the longest run of the training schedule. We started an hour earlier to replicate the morning of the race. It was good that we did too because the temperatures got warm pretty quickly today. Most people on the team did great (congrats), but a few had dehydration issues (better now than in the marathon).
So now the tale of my demise. I guess it started overnight with my blood sugars skyrocketing in a way they haven't done in quite a few weeks. So when I got up (at 4a) for my breakfast I had to take a ton of extra insulin. Then everything seemed fine up until we started. My first issue was with my heart rate. Running early on at an easy pace I noticed my heart rate was way too high. Not exactly sure why. Could have been the heat, but I think it is more likely a sign of overtraining (more on that later). So the heart rate was just something to deal with and the real problem started after I turned around for the homeward half of the run. I was doing a marathon goal pace run today and started to run my pace just before the turn around. I felt alright for a while, but about 5 miles into the mgp section I started having symptoms of what happened to me at last years marathon. It felt like my muscles weren't getting enough glucose, and I really hit the wall. After reflecting on what happened a bit more (glad I had to rewrite this post actually) I think I have a better understanding of what happened. As I mentioned I had to take some extra insulin to cover my high blood sugar pre-meal. So when I began running I had too much insulin circulating and was consuming carbs quite rapidly. Much too rapidly in fact and I think that this was my problem not that I wasn't getting enough glucose to my muscles. This seems a more likely cause because my stomach was pretty upset while I was running as well, so it wasn't just that I hit the wall. I hit the wall and my stomach was not in top form.
As I mentioned above I think I have reached my current mpw limit and have begun to overtrain. How do I know I am overtraing, well most of the symptoms seem to be there...not recovering quickly, always tired and my new favorite side effect sleeping problems. This past week I have had some rather odd sleeping experiences. The top one involved my cell phone. I use my cell phone as an alarm clock (because I wear earplugs so I use my cell on vibrate) and the other night I had an alarm set for the middle of the night to check my blood sugars. The thing was that when I woke up my phone was already in my hand, out of its holster and near my ear like I was speaking on it. I vaguely remember my dream involving me on the phone...so yeah I need to get better sleep and stop overtraining.
Overtraining among other things has got me a bit unmotivated this week. So to motivate myself I began planning my training for after the Pasadena marathon. Of course this involves purchasing new shoes, which of course I did. I am going to try out a new style and brand - Mizuno Wave Elixir 4's. I figured I would try something different because I haven't used much besides DS Trainers and I don't know if there is something better out there for me. I also bought some Mizuno Wave Ascend 4's, which are going to be my trail shoes for this summer (can't wait to get back to trail running). Anyway back to my new training. The biggest problem I have had with the current training plan is that it takes up too many days and I feel that I am wasting workouts on short mileages. So initially after Pasadena I am going to switch to 4 days a week running with the following schedule. Saturday - long run, Sunday - recovery, Tuesday - speedwork, and Thursday - middle distance (w/ strides or fartlek). This plan seems to fit my schedule much better. Only two days during the week, and I plan to run mornings now so I don't have to adjust my work schedule to fit in evening runs. The biggest improvement I think this plan will help with is the quality of my workouts. By moving speedwork to Tuesday I will have two days rest following my long run and plenty of time to rest before my next long run. I think with this schedule I can do about 16-18 miles on Saturday, 8-10 on Sunday, 11-13 on Tuesday and 13-15 on Thursday, which would give me 48-56 mpw the same amount I peaked at during Pasadena training. So yeah I am very excited for Pasadena, and after as well.
Last weeks training -
Tuesday - 11.22 Mile Run w/ Stides - 1:27:40 min, 7:48 pace
Wednesday - 4.97 Mile Easy Run - 40:27 min, 8:08 pace
Thursday - 6.03 Mile Easy Run - 47:14 min, 7:49 pace
Friday - 9.82 Mile Run w/ Tempo - 1:09:35 min, 7:05 pace, warmup and cooldown with 6 Miles @ (6:49, 6:44, 6:38)
Sunday - 21.75 Mile Long Run - 2:52:54 min, 7:56 pace
Shoe Mileage -
Asics DS Trainer 13.1 - 353.04
Asics DS Trainer 13.2 - 140.4
Asics DS Trainer 13.3 - 99.74
Asics Gel Bandito - 88.24
