No Run Week

I've been in a logistics conference this week, without Internet availability. And by the time I've gotten home, I hadn't time or inclination to log anything in the diary. Not to mention, I've not been doing any running...or working out of any kind for that matter.

I've gone three days without a run, but the strange thing is, I'm okay with that. The marathon took so much out of me that even though I'm feeling pretty good, I just generally feel run down. So I'm not itching to get back out on the road or trail like I normally am when I take a day or two rest, like during last week's final taper week.

But it's not like I don't have a lot to write. In fact, the marathon has been on my mind constantly. I replay, analyze, reconstruct, talk about it. I try to figure out when I can or should do my next one. When should I start training again? I could be writing all these things, getting them out of my head and chewing them over.

I don't have time right now, but one thing that I've realized is that I have a skewed memory of how I ran the race. For one thing, I thought my pace was pretty even from the start until around M16. It was then that I thought I started walking through the water stops. But looking at my splits, I noticed that I slowed significantly right after the halfway point. There was a short measured segment from 13.1 to 14.5 over which I went from a consistent 8:20-8:30 pace to a little over 9:00. Now, that might have been because I walked for a short bit to phone Joan since they were supposed to have been in the crowd at Fashion Valley, and when I didn't see them I wanted to touch base to make sure we hadn't just missed each other. So maybe that's why the segment time is so slow.

Nonetheless, I had been thinking that I was pushing to keep an 8:30 or at least 8:45 pace all the way up until I cramped on M21, but that wasn't true. I was slowing from 16 to 18, and even relying on walk breaks from 18 to 21, so my pace was already slowing dramatically. For some reason, I just didn't remember it that way. I swear I wasn't delusional, but I was obviously not looking at the clock as accurately anymore. I remember still thinking I was on a 3:45 pace up until M21; but that can't have been true. I was already tickling 4 hours even before the cramp up.

Ah well...and my photos aren't any good and there's no video of me crossing the finish, so I'm robbed of even that vane pleasure.

Yeah, there's no way I'm not doing another one. I've got to have a better outing.

The guidance is to stay off the running legs for the week. I will. It's good that I'm in this conference so that I'm not tempted to get back into the gym, but I could start some cross training maybe today or tomorrow. I start up a boot camp physical conditioning program on Monday. I don't want to be wasted for that, so whatever workouts I plan to do need to focus on recovery.