Hard Day!

Daily Quote: "Don't try to continue training as normal when experiencing signs of overtraining syndrome, including persistent fatigue, declining performance, lasting muscle soreness, and low motivation. ----Dean Karnazes, from his excellent book, "50/50 Secrets I Learned Running 50 Marathons in 50 Days and How You Too Can Achieve Super Endurance!"

2:10 a.m. After work. Warm-up, 10 minutes on the upright stationary cycle. Weight Circuit Training, 35 minutes. Cool-down, 10 minutes on the elliptical. Today is an experiment, can I do weight lifting after work, and still have a hard running workout when I awake? Last week my weight training was done during "doubles," which consisted of two easy Recovery Runs and was very close to overtraining. This week I won't do weight training during a Recovery Day, but when I'm running once during the day with a hard running workout. I need to keep those easy days, EASY, and the hard days, HARD!

Slept eight hours, morning heart rate 42 bpm. Body feels fine, no ill effects from this morning's workout. I am paying attention to Karnazes in today's above quote, I don't have persistent fatigue nor lasting muscle soreness, plus my motivation is high to improve my Tempo Run performance today! I'll now attempt a vigorous Tempo Run.

12:00 p.m. Tempo Run, 8 miles. Life Fitness Treadmill set at a 1% grade. Warm-up: 2 miles at 6.3 mph (9:31 minute miles). Tempo: 4 miles at 7.8 mph (7:42 minute miles). Cool-down: 2 miles at 6.3 mph. Average heart rate: 163 bpm. Cardiac Drift: 184 bpm. (Note: My maximum heart rate is 190 bpm) Last week I ran three miles at 7.8 mph, today I pushed myself to go four miles and I was really suffering...felt like I was running a 5k race. During my last two cool-down miles the time seemed to go so very slowly as I wanted to get off that treadmill belt as soon as possible. I'm bone tired and don't look forward to leaving for work...it's going to be a long 12-hours in the cab tonight!