Sabatoge!

For several of my big runs, something inexplicit-able happens... somewhere near the end of my training, when there is no real chance of recovery, my training takes a nose-dive. It happened during the training for the MCM -- I caught a nasty flu which put me out for nearly 2 full weeks at the peak of my training. It happened last year when I was training for the National Marathon -- something happened (I don't remember what) which caused me to ultimately change the marathon distance to a 1/2 marathon distance for the race. I caught myself though and recovered for the Frederick Marathon though.

This season, for some reason, in the final two weeks of training, my motivation just stopped. I managed to run 3 days last week (whoop-de-doo) while in O'Fallon IL, but didn't do a long run (the last long run) over the weekend. I also didn't run on Monday. My Lovely Wife convinced me to run last night, and that prompted me to get up this morning to run. I don't know why this is happening. Ugh.

Anyway, I ran well last night (with a 3.5 day recovery, I should have), 6.09 miles at an 8:35 pace. Less than 10 hours later (this morning at 5am), I ran 6.04 miles at a 9:44 (yes, that's a NINE FORTY-FOUR). I expected to run slower this morning, but not that slow. On the other hand, I didn't push it too much in fear of injury. I had originally planned to run 8 this morning, but after feeling my left heel, my right hip flexor, and then my back (!), I decided that risking injury 1.5 weeks before a marathon was probably not worth it.

A couple days ago I changed my goal pace for the marathon. I think I need to change it again. Technically, if I run a 9:09 pace, I can do a 4:00 marathon. However, I wonder if I should hedge it a bit and shoot for a 4:10, which would be a 9:32. I think I should split the difference -- a 4:05 marathon, which would be a 9:20 pace. Hmm..