Weather forecast time! (And a training update)
Meteorologists are predicting that some sort of cold front/jet stream change/other weather thingy is going to push cold air down into my part of the state *starting* on Saturday evening. So I feel like I still can't put a lot of faith in the numbers until Thursday or Friday. Buuuuuut. It's still holding strong in the 54 degrees in the morning/70 degrees in the afternoon. (We will not talk about how it's going to be 93% humidity when it's 54 degrees though.) They're talking about upper-40s for Sunday night/Monday morning so I would be OK if it moved in a little sooner than they're expecting.
And training. *sigh* I really thought about it hard this week, and the best thing that I can come up with is that there's a decent chance that my iron levels are just in the toilet. My "normal" is just a couple of points above low, and I was not good about taking my iron this summer, which was dumb because I ran so many more miles than I usually do. Soooo yeah. I started doubling up on my iron supplements at the beginning of the week, and as long as I don't get any GI issues from that, I'll continue it until race weekend. Everything has just gotten feeling really sluggish, and I'm just generally fatigued when I'm not in the part of my cycle that makes me feel that way.
Instead of being depressing and crossing out everything that I was supposed to do (but didn't) this past week, here is what actually happened:
Wednesday: 5mi easy. My HR was higher than I was expecting, and my legs were all uuuuuugh, do we HAVE to? but I did the stupid miles.
Saturday: 10mi easy, with 20min moderate in the middle. I put 3 scoops of tailwind in my vest, 2 packages of nerds in my pocket. 2 slices of pb toast for breakfast. I got down to high 12min pace for my 20min of moderate, and then kind of fizzled out at the end of the mileage, but I got started late and it was so.hot.and.humid. I filled up my ice bandana again, and it had ice in it the entire time (just over 2 hours) but also it dripped down my back the whole time and made my sports bra chafe a little. The drawstring on my leggings (the ones I have been wearing ALL FREAKING SUMMER) chafed the *other* side of my belly button. I was still well under the pace requirement for next weekend, and am still mentally hyping myself up for doing my best to hold my (conservative) goal pace through mile 20 and then walking as much as I need to in to the finish.
Everyone was unexpectedly home on Saturday, so we decided last-minute to head down to Grand Rapids to do a little bit of back-to-school shopping. Our last stop was Sierra and DH and I agreed that it will be our first stop in the future. I found 2 more pairs of injinji socks (for $8/pair!) and could have easily spent a few hundred in the clothing section....they had a lot of smartwool stuff and a couple of other brands that I like. But spending over 4 hours in the car after that run was giving me major RLS on the way home.
Upcoming: I don't have anything longer than 5mi this week, so I'm going to try really hard to get all of the runs in so maybe I can get my legs feeling like they're ready. DH and I will pack the camper on Friday and then drop it off at the camping area near the trailhead Friday night when I pick up my bib and swag bag. Then it's a big XC meet on Saturday morning, dropping kids off at my parents Saturday afternoon, and heading down to the camper Saturday evening to run on Sunday! EEK! I can't believe I'm just a week away at this point!
