Plan B

I've never been 100% type A personality.  Oh sure, I have a lot of the characteristics but I've always had an undercurrent of laziness  and lack of stamina that keeps me out of being Full Force Type A.  I'm totally type A in my head but in reality I'm an A-.   Or even B+.

The older I get (or as a really good friend likes to say 'the less young we become') my brain is even  taking a break from all A all the time. Since I started running, I didn't have to remind myself to have a rest day -- I love rest days.  Oh, I don't feel like cross training? -- that's fine, I must need more rest.   So now really where I'm at is that I have Type A goals (I want a 1.45 half - really I do), a Type B brain (well maybe I'll get it running 3 days a week? no?) and a body that can fail quicker than it ever could in the past (ha ha ha -- that's my body laughing at me).

It has been a stressful few weeks.  Nothing huge.  A job that shouldn't be stressful at all has been for very silly and annoying reasons.  And when the going gets tough, I stop sleeping. I'm a terrible sleeper under the best of situations but the first sign of stress and I go into being awake for several hours every night.  So very annoying but it seems to be what I do despite trying everything to not let it happen.   

I knew I was headed downhill -- my runs over the past week and a half have been miserable.  I got a cold sore earlier in the week (gross-- I know.  but I mention it as I ONLY get them when stress gets me).  I had a few nights this week that kept me out until 1am Tuesday night (Wed morn really) and 11:30 Wednesday night.  This is way past my bedtime and even though I didn't get up for early workouts the next day, I knew that wasn't good -- but these were fun things (dinner cruise on the bay with tour of Alcatraz one night (seriously fun) and a wine dinner with friends the other) and not the norm so I pushed on.  Last night I was in bed at my normal 9pm so got up early to do the tempo run for the week.  And you can see where this is headed -- I shouldn't have done it.  The run was terrible to say the least -- before I even started I downgraded it to a nice and easy run.  But even that was SO MUCH WORK.  I seriously thought I was going to die -- and then I did.  I almost fell asleep while in the shower (leaning on the side while attempting to wash my hair!) and then when I got out I was so sick to my stomach I couldn't believe it.  I thought about a work at home day (I can do those sometimes) but even when I sat down to check emails, I was only thinking about being sick.  So I fired off email to girl in office saying I'd be in late and went to bed and passed out for about an hour and a half.  I have never ever not gone to work because I was too tired!  I was kind of in shock actually but when I woke up, I felt okay.  Tired but functioning so I came in to the office.   But now that it is the end of the day, the only thing I can think of is getting home and getting in bed.

This is a very long way of saying I don't know what in the heck I'm going to do about the two half marathons I've got coming up.  The sad thing is, I signed up for the one on Oct 2nd just a couple weeks back when I was all pouty for feeling fine right before Disney and then not performing how I though I should (yeah, bad karma from the pouting, eh).  Two weeks after that one is the Wine Country Half in Healdsburg (will run for wine glass and wine tasting at end!).

I'm doing them both -- otherwise this job will have won and I'm ornery enough not to let that happen.  I'm just trying to figure something reasonable to do over the next three weeks that can do to mostly keep me mentally in the game and we'll just worry about times later.  So I'm working on Plan B.

This upcoming week was going to be a taper week but since I basically took this week as a taper, I'm not sure I want to completely follow the taper on the schedule.  That will freak me out mentally (that whole loosing fitness thing).  But I've also got to drop the tempo runs as they just are confidence busters for me lately.  So I think my plan over the next three weeks to get through two half marathons will be something along the lines of:

Tomorrow -- 10 miles super easy pace ( I'm going to bed at early tonight -- I can handle this)
Sunday -- 4ish miles easy
next Tuesday -- 5ish miles easy
next Thursday -- 5ish miles easy
Oct 3rd -- race (only goal now is to keep sub 2 since I'm so on the fence with that)

Then I think the following two weeks will be just more of the same -- get out there, get the miles in and if I feel like a day or two in that two week period to do a bit of speed then I will.  And if not, I won't and no stressing about it.  Healdsburg will be a rolling hills race so there wasn't really a PR chance.  So my goal for that will be right at 2hours.

This weekend is a bit busy but all next week isn't. So I plan on going to bed at 7 or 8 if I have to (sounds silly -- but when you are awake for 2 or 3 hours in the middle of the night, starting at 8pm is the only way to get a decent nights sleep).   This will get me through next Sunday and then I'll reevaluate the following two weeks.

Sometimes life just goes a bit crazy.