The Hiatus Is Over

I'm sure my hypothetical readers were wondering what I've been up to. You know that saying "no news is good news?" Well, it doesn't apply to a blog. I haven't written in a couple weeks because I've been too demoralized to rehash how crappy running has been going. Getting through the last two weeks was bad enough, typing it up again was nothing I wanted to deal with.

I'm not sure what's up with me, but my tank, so to speak, is empty. You know when you're about 2/3rds of the way through a race and things start to suck and you can either dig down or slow down? I get to that point, and it's like I'm stuck in neutral. I can hit the gas all I want, but I'm not going anyway. I dropped out of my last two races- a 5k and a 3k. I was running slow as death in each of them, and worse, felt more than maxed out doing it.

Bruce and I talked things over and both agreed I should get back to basics. I also need to get a little leaner and stronger- I've joked before about being a soft miler, but seriously, it's time to do some pushups and situps. I've got probably 7-8 pounds of fat on me that I don't need, despite decent mileage and a good diet.

My mileage for the two weeks I didn't blog were 69 and 61, respectively, with a day off this past Sunday. To spare a little redundancy, here's how most of those runs went: "9 miles slow, felt terrible."

I got blood work done a week ago, so hopefully, I'll be hearing from my doctor today or tomorrow. He tested me for just about everything from ferritin reserves to abnormal hormonal activity. If nothing else, knowing that I don't have any chemical problems will be a huge relief.

Anyway, I hope the end of everyone's seasons was much better than mine. I'm very frustrated, but trying to keep my chin up. At the very least, I can send a congratulations to my younger brother, who just finished his junior year of high school with a 9:36 3200, which was a 13 or 14 second PR.