Let's review this past weekend's running mistakes. 1) Stayed up until 2 a.m. on Friday night. 2) That same night drank many beers (Boddington Ale, if you haven't had it your existence is not quite complete). 3) Though I knew it was going to be brutal hot, I slept in and didn't get out for my 8-miler until late morning. Mistake number three MAY have been a result of mistakes 1 and 2 but I can't be 100% sure! In my defense I realized my mistakes early on and took it REAL easy, did a fair amount of power-hiking up the steepest hills, and survived in decent shape considering it was in the mid-nineties by the time I finished up.I recovered enough to do an EZ 5 the next day on the Galena Territory roads.

I have been not myself since that Saturday run, though. I don't know about anybody else, but I have periods where I am not what I would describe as fatigued, but what I would call my "energy level" is just not there. I won't be sore and I can go out on a run and feel decent, hitting any time or distance goal without much problem. But I just feel mentally hazy all day long and won't have any real motivation or enthusiasm for much of anything, especially running.

I have been pretty careful not to overextend myself since my marathon training, where I completely burned myself out and stuck rigidly to my training schedule no matter what my body and mind was telling me. That experience completely changed how I train for a race, though I have not tackled marathon training since then. I now pretty much wing it on my own training schedule, which in a lot of ways mirrors what I do when I am not training for anything, just with more mileage. I only run during the work week on Tuesday and Thursday. One of those days I make it a point to hit a park trail, running completely on feel with no time goal. The other day is a road tempo run or hill repeats on a long gradual hill in my town. On Wednesday I either go for a walk or hit the eliptical for 30-45 minutes, then some core work and leg work like lunges and toe raises. I always totally rest on Friday and if I do anything on Monday it is very easy.

The weekend I always run both days, usually long trail runs on Saturday and an EZ shorter run the next day. The long run I really try to stay away from time goals and focus on running according to how I feel. This is easier said than done if I am not on a trail because, like a lot of runners I suspect, I become more concerned with the numbers on the watch when I run on the pavement. I feel one of the worst things I personally do to myself in training is push myself on my long run, resulting in "leaving my race" in training. So the end result is I only run 4 days a week, seriously cross train one day, and usually totally rest two days. This hasn't solved every problem I have and I have not achieved running bliss or anything, but I feel it works well for me. I haven't had nearly as much periods of low energy that I described above since I started this schedule. It's a constant learning experience, though. I might be doing something totally different next year. Who knows?

I am taking my son to the Byronfest 5k on Saturday. It's at a forest preserve that he runs at for cross country a couple times every year so it will be a good race for him with some good competition. I may run also (I will not be one of those providing "good competition" for him) if I feel like manipulating my weekend training schedule a bit. Saturday night I will be camping at White Pines State Park and running the trails there. One of the things I plan on doing with this blog is providing some trail running park reviews, so I might start with The Pines next week.

Later, trail fiends! There is a Potosi Fiddler in the fridge waiting to get in my belly!