This has been a tough week, beginning on March 9th when our youngest had his tonsils removed. His recovery proved challenging, and included a 9 hour visit to the local urgent care facility, and then an ambulance ride downtown to the local children's hospital between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. We finally headed home at 6 AM Wednesday morning. Needless to say, Julie and I, and the little one were pretty wiped out. So I made Wednesday my rest day, and picked up with my training plan on Thursday.

On Thursday, we had our second yoga session scheduled, and for some reason I decided that I also needed to run through a more traditional strength training routine prior to yoga class. After lifting weights, and after yoga, it was time for my running--Wednesday's run, to be specific--8 x 1/4 mile intervals with 2 minutes of active recovery, along with a 1 mile warm-up and cool-down. Talk about packing in the fitness! And this was all between 5:20 PM and 10 PM Thursday night.

Friday, which is my usual rest day, rolls around, but this time I need to get in a 3 mile recovery run, which I finally do around 7:30 PM. It went okay, as I covered the 3 miles at a nice leisurely pace, taking somewhere between 34 and 35 minutes to complete the route, with an average heart rate of 145 bpm--which is pretty good for me.

Saturday morning found us all catching up on sleep, as we slept until 11 AM. By early afternoon, I was heading out for my scheduled Saturday run, which was 5 miles, fast. It was warm and sunny, and more than a little windy, but what the heck, I just run 4 miles, fast two weeks earlier in 38:45, so I figured that I could easily do 5 in under 50 minutes, and probably under 48 minutes. Boy was I wrong! After starting off a little fast (goal for the first mile was 10 minutes), at 9:23 and 9:16 for my first two miles, I really started to fade halfway through mile 3, with my heart rate up to 188. Instead of continuing to push the pace, and risk not finishing, I did something that I haven't done in months--take a walk break. Through the rest of the run, I took more than 9 walk breaks, typically 30 seconds in length, for a total walking time of 4:36. By the time I hit 5 miles, 50:25 had elapsed and for the first time ever, I had lost to my Garmin Forerunner 305's Virtual Training Partner. Still, I was actually satisfied with my time, given the week and given the weather. I was also very glad that I had listened to my body and allowed myself to walk. I seriously doubt that I would've made it through the 5 miles if I had kept running.

As Today rolled around, and it was nearing time to go out for my long run, there was more than a little doubt lingering from the day before. Today's run was a scheduled 7-miler, which I had only ever done once before, and that was just the previous Sunday. Nonetheless, I set out a little before noon, with the goal of taking it easy at 12:00/mile. In the end, I did just that, averaging 11:57/mile, which was 4 seconds per mile faster than last Sunday's 7-mile run, However, my average heart rate was 161 bpm, compared to 155 bpm the previous week.

I think it's pretty obvious that I pushed my body a little harder than I should have over the last 4 days. While I ate well, I didn't get enough sleep leading up to the 4 days in a row of running, including 2 hard training days, and over the last two days, it started to show. Fortunately, Monday is rest or stretch/strengthen (I'll be doing the latter), as long as it doesn't involve the legs. I am looking forward to it.

One more note: This coming week is week 8 of Hal Higdon's 5K Intermediate Training Program, which means this coming Saturday will be a 5K race. I've not signed up for anything, but we were planning on doing the Bunny Boogie 5K Run/Walk.