Track Tuesday

Sunday: rest day. I was SO dead after 12k Saturday PLUS helping a friend move for 3 hr PLUS two major shopping excursions (bathroom tile because we're redoing our master bath, and Costco because I promised a friend I'd take him). Oops. I tried to rest a lot on Sunday but I had some social obligations so my rest was more limited than I'd have liked. I did get good sleep Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.

Monday: My body was still tired so I did a 45 min (or so) casual walk with the dogs for exercise. It felt nice to move w/o pushing things at all.

Today: speed work. I was to do a 3K fartlek with the fast segments at 85% effort, 4' rest, 4x500 @85% effort. It's stupid hot outside right now; I woke up later than planned so I couldn't do the outdoor track before work. I slept very poorly because 1) I went to bed too late because I had a meeting re: our hosting for the SL Fellows program next year, 2) there was a massive and loud thunderstorm at 11pm, and 3) Sugar barked on overdrive at something (who knows what? probably a raccoon?) at 2 am. Grim face at left after my workout, at the gym - outdoors was hot behind me (it's only 90F right now or 32.2C, which is not THAT hot for July, but it is no picnic for RW).

I went to work and did a bunch of stuff, then managed to pull myself away for my workout at 11am. I felt dizzy, probably from lack of sleep, but also maybe still a side effect from not taking the escitalopram (my last dose was Sunday the 8th). I had tired, achy glutes before the workout, and I have no idea why - I felt recovered from moving the boxes and from my Saturday workout yesterday. So what the heck is this soreness???

Mentally it was SO hard to stay positive. My inner critic was on overdrive. I tried to shut it up by reminding it that it is not helping me get better. That worked for a bit and then it just kept kicking back in. When I do a workout and am SO MUCH SLOWER than I EVER have been historically, it's so hard to make that voice shut up. It is just painful to do speed work because of it! I swear if there was a good easy way to make it go away, I would. I wonder if the escitalopram helped it quiet down, and that's why it's worse now? Or maybe it's the lack of sleep. It was a most unpleasant workout because of that.

I did keep from doing an all-out effort. I had to keep reminding myself to hold a little back. So...yeah, I was VERY slow.

Converting from the 292.6m track, my fartlek was 19:10.3, with fasts and mediums (585.2m each, converted to 500m times) of 3:02.7, 3:18.2, 3:07.5, 3:18.7, 3:11.5 (!UGH!). My 500m were approximate - I had to make an educated guess based on my lap times where the 500m split was. Assuming I was close, my 500m times were 3:02.3, 3:04.1, 3:06.4, and 3:03.2 (that's similar to outdoors last week, so that's probably about right).

It's hard to shut off the voice that says I'm too slow to go to Spain. It's hard not to compare to where I used to be. It's hard to feel really sick (I'm SO fatigued and dizzy today). I should probably go home early from work and take a sick day but I have stuff to do, and let's face it, work is a higher priority than recreational hobbies like racewalking, because it has to be.