6 x 2 minutes is in the books

Wow, 6 weeks seems to have flown by and I am standing at the door steps ready to run another marathon. Often I wonder why other people sign up for such impossible tasks and what is it about these tasks that attract people to do them. Is it really necessary for us to take the most difficult road possible all of the time?

For me there is only answer to this question. Yes, it is.

I cannot seem to do anything that doesn't require a mountain of effort to overcome. My guess this is life's plan for me until I die.

Anyway, this morning my alarm went off at 5 am and I was headed out the door to meet Nathan at 6 am for my last hard effort before OBX.

My motivation has been running low. So I am blaming this on my diet. Normally, I try to reduce my carb consumption leading up to a marathon, but proteins just don't give me the energy either physically or mentally for hard workouts.

Logically, it makes sense to do this but it doesn't make it any easier. I want to feel good and hungry to race this weekend.

Sorry for the tangent. We headed back to this little quiet neighborhood for our usual hard workouts. From other post, I have shared that this little loop can be broken into 3 parts: Downhill, flat, and uphill.

We always start on the uphill portion so we can finish on the downhill and flat portion. Nathan has been great about doing the lead outs. Today, we hit the first one in a sluggish 6:10 pace. This was more of a wakeup call to my body.

We followed with some 5:50s, 5:40s, 5:30s, and 5:20s. All well below my goal marathon pace and the real reason that my breathing was so labored.

Before going into the warm down, I had to slow for a few minutes while my breathing caught up to my running. Pretty much after the first interval, my breathing was far, far behind me. At least that is my story and I am sticking with it.

We knocked out a couple more miles before splitting off. Nathan headed home and I headed back to my car.

After feeling like I was struggling throughout my workout, I didn't really feel tired once I got back to my car. I can honestly say that I don't feel this too often.

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner