And yesterday's 2-miler was hard.
I'm not sure why that is, but I'm glad I discovered this so early in the training, since the actual race is going to be in the early morning. If I can't get used to running in the morning then I will be fucked.
I have run in early mornings before, when it was nice and warm out and I used to get up early on weekends and do my long runs in the morning sun. And I used to like it a lot. I had all the time in the world, I explored new routes, and I didn't have to worry about wondering too far away and lose the sun.
And I ate breakfast. Not a large one, but one after which I didn't feel hungry. It was health too: I finished the last of my homemade chia pudding (just add coconut milk to chia seed and let time do the rest). And I drank water before I left. Maybe it wasn't enough but I didn't want to wait too long for a big breakfast to digest before going out of the door.
I slept a reasonable amount too. About 8 hours. Granted I slept very little the night before and had a long day Saturday, but when I got up on Sunday morning I didn't feel like I had to be dragged out of the bed.
Apart from the fact that the TV shows were kind of dull and the gym was more crowded than usual (with more people going for the treadmill so I couldn't get my usual spot), I couldn't think of how yesterday morning was different from all the other nights. My shoes were acting weird too. The insoles, which normally feel fine, were particularly uncomfortable yesterday. The arch support was way too high and I felt weird pain all over the bottom of my feet. Not sharp pain that indicate some sort of acute injury, but annoying dull pain that made me slow down and want to stop.
I also felt tired. Making it to the 2-mile mark felt particularly long and difficult. I don't know if it was the psychology of having to be there and do two miles at a time I no longer regularly run, or if it was just the physical fatigue that seeped into my psyche, but it was just hard. I blamed most of it on my lack of a better breakfast, since it's the easiest thing to fix for next time I guess, and I ordered a new pair of insoles as soon as I got home, but I think it's going to take more than those, and more trial and error to fully adjust to a better morning run.
Which also scares me, since weekends are supposed to be my long-run days. How am I supposed to do that if it's the one day I'm mostly out of shape? I could very feasibly switch my long run days to another night, like tonight when I have to be there for an hour anyway (for the newest episode of Castle), but I don't like this idea as much since the actual race day is on a weekend morning. But temporarily it could be a solution, until I get my weekend morning routine set up and going.
If I'm doing this then I'll have to pretend that last week was all short runs (which they kind of were) and today is the first long run of the first week of training, or I'm simply switching the order of this week's run. I'm not sure how much difference it will make to my body, but for someone who likes to follow a good plan it is slightly disorienting.
So 3 miles tonight then. Which is still not that big of a deal but still good to get me into the routine.
Happy Running!
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