"You'll get used to it"

I didn't have a great run on Saturday along the Lafayette-Moraga Trail. Apparently ramping up my training, especially the Tuesday and Thursday workouts with the personal trainer, took a big toll on my legs. The first 3 miles were good, then I sped up a tad on mile 4. Then I ran smack dab into a big freakin' wall. I thought that perhaps I was a little late on gu'ing, or maybe I hadn't eaten enough breakfast. Probably I'd get a second wind once I passed the little hills. Or I'd feel better after taking a short break to refill my water bottle at the 5.5 mile fountain.

As I was under the little delusion that any minute now I'd be feeling better, I continued on to the 6 mile mark before turning back. On the contrary, when I got back to the water fountain I had to take a break and refill the bottle again, just to take the 60 second pause. Walk a little, run a little, walk, run, take more gu, drink more water. At the Senior Center at the 3 mile mark (9 miles down) I refilled again.

Did I mention it was considerably warmer than I'm used to? Wahhh, boo hoo kitty poor me. While one part of my brain was actively thrilled at the beautiful day, the flowering oleanders, the deep green of fresh grass and shrubs, the other part of my brain was in whine overdrive. It's quite tough trying to run on legs that feel like grossly overcooked linguine. Not even al dente. Wobbly and shaky I continued along the trail, trying to keep my pace within something resembling a run.

I finished the 12.1 miles with my average almost 50 seconds/mile slower than the previous week when I'd been feeling great.But I finished, which is a good thing.

On Monday to celebrate my day off I treadmilled at home. I'm once again having Comcast issues (I'm on my third cable box/dvr for the exercise room) so I ran for 40 minutes while watching the local morning show. I even managed to not throw my shoe through the television screen out of sheer boredom.

Today was another workout with "Katie." Although I've been sleeping a little better recently (almost 5 hours each night!) last night was back to old habits. I think I managed an interrupted 2 hours total and when the alarm went off at 5:15 dark am, I wasn't too happy. Money talks though, and told me to get out of bed and to the gym.

The first thing I told Katie was that my legs were toast for my run on Saturday. She told me that it was just my first week, I'd get used to it. It wasn't until a couple of hours later that I realized I didn't know if she meant my legs would get used to the extra workouts and running would be easier, or if she meant I'd get used to running while my legs were toast. I don't think I'm going to ask her to clarify, I might not like the answer.

The workout was hard because of the lack of sleep. It was the same as Thursday but because of the lack of sleep my heart rate kept rising and my breathing wasn't smooth. I did all the exercises while Katie had to continue correcting my sloppy form. As I won't not try to do something she asks me to do, I was at definite risk of falling flat on my face. Shaky arms and legs made this workout -- uh -- interesting.

There were still a few minutes left after completing the sets I had done last week so Katie threw me a curve ball (not literally). She added a set of mountain climbers (I think that's what they're called) and I did indeed fall on my face. These were superset with oblique situps. Maybe superset is a misnomer since I managed one set of each this time. She generously called it a test set. Something to look forward to on Thursday morning.

I was tired all day and had a lovely nap after work. I've also been starved all day and have eaten every single calorie allowed, and then some. I think I've been shorting myself (I really liked seeing that scale drop last week) and I know that's a bad idea when I'm increasing my activity.

This is going to take some practice before I get it right, but I'm going to keep trying.