Sick and Tired

I spent my 29th birthday unconscious in the bed in our spare bedroom for most of the day. I went to work Monday morning after checking on my sick wife and dropping my little boy off at daycare. I got to work and clocked in at 0730 and after sitting at my desk for an hour I decided that I was in no shape to work and was just going to go home. I found my way home and at exactly 0916 I stripped off my scrubs and collapsed into bed and slept like a dead man until 1154. After waking up, I emptied my bladder, checked on Kim, ate a PBJ sandwhich and went back to bed at 1300. I ended up sleeping until about 1500 or so and after waking up and making myself presentable I picked up my child from daycare. I spent the evening playing with Nathan and taking care of him and at 2000 hours I left him with his Mom and I crashed out again until I woke up at 0354 when I heard it raining outside my window. I fell back asleep and woke up at 0530 when my alarm went off feeling incredibly refreshed.

Tuesday, after returning home from work, I picked up Kim and we picked up Nathan and drove to Lincoln to retrieve my wife's car that had been sitting in the hospital parking lot since Friday. I had picked Kim up on my way to Peoria for Steamboat and the plan was to drop her off at her car on Sunday and we would caravan home. Kim came up sick Sunday afternoon and we just drove straight home because she was in no shape to drive.

When we returned from our little jaunt I went for a recreational 4 mile run to see how the legs felt after having skipped the last two days. I felt quite well, much to my surprise, and covered my course in 33:39.

Upon completion of my run we ate dinner, put Nathan to bed and finished folding laundry and putting new linen on the bed. I am a champion-class hospital corner folder so I actually put the new linen on while Kim got ready for bed.

I arose at 0415 and went to the track to run an interval workout. I ran a one mile warm-up with one mile worth of strides in 16:44 with splits of 8:50 point and 7:53 point.

My practice was to consist of 2x (200 w/ 200 jog, 200 w/400 jog and 800 w/ 400 jog). As always the 200s were to be at :43 and the 800s at 2:55 or so.

As it turns out I ran 43.80 (1:21.83), 44.71 (2:30.54), 2:56.42 (3:26.33), I actually had to stop after the 400 recovery jog to keep myself from throwing up. Most intelligent people probably would have just gone into a cool-down after that but I figured that since I hadn't puked I was okay and could do my last set, so I did.

After my near miss, I ran my set in: 40.93 (what the hell? 1:30.34), 42.75 (2:40.49), and 2:57.08 (2:31.81). I cooled down with a mile in 8:42 and went home to get my son and myself ready for our day.

Nathan and I ate breakfast together and I had some generic healthy type cereal with cranberries in it along with Silk and a cup or two of the hazelnut coffee they got me for Father's Day. Nathan had "Go Diego" Peach flavored yogurt. Nathan likes yogurt and it cracks me up.

At work I walked around with some first year radiography students while they observed, organized my desk and went to a meeting for a comittee I am a member of. After work I mowed the yard.

I am a wild and crazy guy.

I think that this morning's workout should have just been canceled and that I should have run easy with a few surges in the middle miles. I am lining up for the Scholastic 5k this weekend and I would like to run fast and I don't think the track workout helped. I don't think I'll be breaking 19:00 this weekend but I think I will be within 10-15 seconds if I catch a break and feel amazing Saturday morning.

I ran the last 3 miles of Steamboat in 19:15 which is only 4 seconds slower than my three mile split at the Jingle Bell Run where I ran 19:45 for 5k. At the worst, I think I can beat my time of 19:35 from the PPR .

The race plan is this: see how I feel after a mile or two of jogging, hit my mile split in a relaxed 6:10-6:20 and then run a strong second mile looking to hit 12:15-12:30 and then holding on for dear life the last 1.1 and seeing where the chips fall. I'm pretty sure that if I can hit two miles in 12:25 and gut out a 6:25 third mile for a three mile time of 18:50 I can cover the last 0.1 in at least 35 seconds to put me at 19:25. I'm hoping for a much faster time than that though.