Slow ramp...

As in, I'm slowly ramping up my mileage. This week, baring something unforeseen, I should hit 48+ miles in training.  My volume is growing.  Today though I am going to have to absolutely force myself out the door.  I'm very tired - both sleepy tired and physically tired. 

The sleepy tired is coming from Deneb.  For some reason, he's decided that he wants to sleep with Mom and Dad every night when we are here in La Guardia. Even if he starts the night in his own bed, eventually he comes looking for space in ours.  Mom can't say no.  He ends up kicking and pounding on me for the remainder of the night.  That leaves me with no more than 4 or 5 hours of quality sleep each night.

The physically tired part is harder to pinpoint, but yesterday I logged 30+ minutes of work in the so called "no mans land" of heart rate zone 3 (tempo).  Tempo work is good for building aerobic fitness, but it has a long recovery time.  So long that many coaches advocate against training in it - stating that the long term benefits are outweighed by the short term consequences.  

Anyway, because of my fitful sleep patterns recently, yesterday I opted to substitute long minutes in Zone 3 for mile repeats - work done in upper zone 4 to low zone 5.  I say it's hard to pinpoint why I'm physically tired since this is an unusual reaction to yesterday's effort.  I've logged many, many 30+ minute long tempo workouts and not felt like I do today.  I'm also coming off a good rest week and even though I had a very tough workout on Saturday, I followed that up with a day off on Sunday.

There's a part of me that is thinking that going out for my regularly scheduled run would be good discipline and help with the mental toughness angle of my Leadville training.  There's a part of me that is thinking to ditch my run all together and take my rest day today.  And, there' a part of me that is trying to find some middle ground.

The compromise is going to win.  This week is challenging scheduling wise, but I can move my short day to today and run my second longest run to Saturday in Cuevas.  That actually works pretty well because I haven't run any hills in over a week.  I'd get 1000+ feet of climbing in on Saturday in addition to the longer run (come to think of it - maybe I should consider moving my long run to Saturday, but will talk to Nataly about that).  Additionally I save the day off for family time.  A good thing.

Anyway, this slow ramp has allowed me to consistently get out and log my miles.  I haven't missed a workout since December.  I think that may be one of my longest streaks ever where I haven't found some excuse or other to take an unscheduled day off.  I really hope to keep that streak going.  We'll see.  I am not even half way to my big mileage weeks yet (next week that'll change).

Thanks for reading, and (got nothing)...
J