Tempo again

I think that this week, the fatigue of marathon training has finally begun to set in. I had been feeling pretty good, even though at times during runs I would feel pretty tired. But this week, for the first time I started to feel fatigue from run to run.

Coming off of my two hour run on Sunday, I had a 10 miler scheduled for Tuesday. I ran my basic 10 mile loop, which is just my basic 6 mile loop to the lake and back with a four mile loop on the hike and bike trail added in. Things went fine, but from the get go my legs felt tired. I timed myself between a few of the markers down on the trail, and even though I thought I was going well every time I ended up with a 9:30 or so mile. But I finished and felt pretty good overall.

Tuesday was a 10 miler, but it was just an aerobic run. My Thursday runs I look forward to less because they're tempo runs and I always hate the anticipation of pain. This Thursday was scheduled for 60 minutes of tempo after last week's 50. I decided to go for a flatter route and head up Shoal Creek, assuming that 15 minutes warm-up + 60 minutes tempo + ~5 minutes cool down would equate to around 8 miles.

As with Tuesday, I felt tired from the start. I was slow for the first 15 minutes, well short of where I would normally arrive in that time. I started the tempo; without something to tell me exactly how far I'm running it's hard to really measure my pace, but I kind of know the difference between 8:30, 8:00 and 7:40. I try during these tempo runs to start out easier, around 8:15 and keep ratcheting it up every 10 minutes or so, hoping to end around 7:40 or faster. I have no idea whether I did that or not on Thursday, though I can say for sure that it hurt pretty badly by the end...

I've noticed in these weekly runs how it's getting darker early in the morning. I generally get started around 6:30 - 6:45, and now it's still pretty dark at 6:30. Also, while it's cool in the mornings, the humidity is higher. I knew when I signed up for Chicago, that it would mean training hard during the hottest time of the year here in Austin, and I'm not disappointed ;-) I've always theorized about training hard through the summer here, but it's a lot easier to imagine it and do it in your head than to do it for real. But I hope that this will make me tougher in the end. I have to admit, that when I'm running 8 minute miles out there and my legs are tired, I can't really imagine doing that for a full 26 miles, but that's where I hope to end up.