Sunday Long//Tues thud

After the half-marathon time trial of last week, the falling temperatures, and the great run on Saturday, I was ready to go out on Sunday morning and rack up the longest run of the preparation. The temperature was only about 23 or 24 degrees, a tad warmer than Saturday.

Somehow I woke up feeling less than fantastic and was bit slow to get going. Still, I got out the door and ran to Yoyogi park. Data shows I did that at 5:10/km pace. I knew it was slightly quicker than the long run pace I have been doing in the heat, but it did feel sustainable. I joined up with Colin and then proceeded to run five laps at around 5:20/km pace (we were joined by Paul and Gareth after three laps at 9:00am). I then had three laps where Paul and I wound it up a little to just under 5:00/km pace. Then when Paul stopped, Colin caught up to me. But he'd knackered himself in the process, so we again dropped back the pace for my last two laps in the park. I had a brief rest and finished off my sports drink before heading for home. I tried to pick up the pace on what were now very tired legs. I was happy with the 4:50/km pace that I managed for those last 5.5 km. It ended up as 35.5 km at an average pace of 5:10/km and a spread from about 4:50/km to about 5:20/km.

On Sunday afternoon I got dragged off to a rugby match by a neighbourhood friend. I wasn't really all that keen, but the kids were all off doing things, so I didn't have much reason to say no. My friend then insisted on drinking fairly solidly and my pathetic efforts to resist were futile. I was disappointed in myself that I wasn't more insistent because I ended up worse for wear. I did manage to get home in time to cook dinner for the kids, but went to bed early only to wake up with a reasonably bad hangover. I ended up taking the younger two boys to a movie yesterday (it was a holiday) but I was in a delicate state.

This morning I woke up at 5:00 and could tell right away that my body was still recovering from the grog. The poor thing is just not able to handle grog like it could when it had 12 kg of extra fat. I got out the door and struggled with the run. My heart rate wasn't doing anything crazy, but running at 4:50 to 5:00 pace was a real slog. I called it quits after two laps of Komazawa (11.9 km). Hopefully tomorrow will be better, but I do feel as though that little binge session is going to haunt my training for the next week or so. Most unfortunate.