Off the Rails

Recently I feel like my training has been a real struggle.  Going into the relay I felt like everything was clicking and that I was running the best I have ever run.  Now, not so much.  Since the race I have managed to put on about 6 pounds, even though I have adjusted my diet to be much healthier, and I feel like my running is complete crap.  I've had more days in the past month where I have been really disappointed with my training than I ever have before.  The closer I get to the half marathon in August the more I feel like I am just not ready for it.

I'm not sure exactly what is going on here.  Part of the reason is the weather.  It's just really difficult to put out a solid, hard run when it is 92 degrees out.  No matter what I want to do I just can't give 100% for an hour in temps like that.  I can accept that, but it is still frustrating as all hell.  But to solely blame the weather would be disingenuous and too easy.  Something else is going on here. Mentally I have found it much harder to keep my focus and it often feels like I am just going through the motions.  I've been really looking forward to running the half in Providence and had big plans to set a huge PR so I don't know why I can't seem to stay focused on it.  It seems that the more weight I gain and the more bad workouts I complete the more I get sucked into a downward spiral of negativity which leads to more bad thoughts messing up my head.

You know it is a bad sign when you are trying to choose which marathon to run in October and you begin to favor one over the other solely because it is two weeks later than the other.  That's where I am at right now.  BayState is two weeks after Smuttynose and I keep finding myself picking BayState only because it would give me two extra weeks to train.  Two weeks is nearly useless in terms of marathon training and won't somehow end up putting me over the final barrier to greatness.  And yet here I am, picking a marathon because it is a bit later on the calendar.  I'm not even sure I want to do BayState again, that's the sad part.

Today is another big workout, and another hot day.  The way my numbers have been lately I have a better chance of qualifying for WIC than ever qualifying for Boston.  I'm going to try to pull it all together and get back in the rhythm.  Not much else I can do.

Alright, I'll shut up now.

Edit: Just got back from today's run and it went ok, but frustratingly so.  First half was feeling good and the pace was spot on.  I picked it up and found I was going faster than expected but it still felt great.  Then around 50 minutes in I started to crash.  It was taking all of my energy just to keep a moderate pace, not even marathon pace.  This was not a crazy-hard workout but I still felt like ass towards the end.  Managed to step it up for the last few minutes but goddammit.  Seriously, goddammit.  One thing to note; going the bathroom afterwards I noticed that I was pretty dehydrated, that could have been an issue.