Day 277: Wired/Tired

I can't seem to get focused today. I feel both wired and tired. I could not nap after yesterday's run. And I had a hard time falling asleep too, but found it relatively easy to hop out of bed this morning. My nap this morning was short, too. But it's wired energy, not useful energy.

I'm anxiously awaiting election results here in Canada.

So ... this morning, I got up just like usual, and swam for 50 minutes, then ran for 5k on the track. I swam in the medium lane (a step up!) with the woman who often swims with me. I still don't know her name (I should really ask). She does triathlons, and she had just run her first half-marathon (outside of a triathlon, she said) yesterday, but she was hesitant to take the medium lane though our usual slow lane was already in use. It was funny to be the one telling her she's fast enough for the medium lane! I mean, she swims faster than me, and she swims without stopping, and trains using a watch, timing her splits. She's faster than a lot of people I've seen in the medium lane, including me (I used a medium lane myself on Friday). She asked if I would split a medium lane with her. I liked that. Like splitting an order of fries. Since we were both tired from our race days, it was a pleasant pace in the water. Time rolled by today, not sure why.

The last thing I felt like doing was running, but the 10k didn't wear me out as much as the half. It was a harder race to run mentally, but I didn't feel it took as much out of me physically. So up I went to the track. I started slow and sped up incrementally until I'd completed 3km, then slowed down for the first lap of the fourth km and sped up as I went, so that I was running the fourth lap even faster than my usual pace. I did this on kilometre five, too, slow lap to start and recover and trying to sprint that last lap. But I was admittedly tired. I tried to imagine someone urging me on, like in spin class. I'm going to miss spin class for that. The voice in my head is never quite as motivating.

I had the absolutely crazy (though no doubt true) thought that if I could run 10km every day like I ran on Sunday, I'd get a whole lot faster. But there's no way I have the mental fortitude for that, even if it were physically possible. Still, I suspect that's how people get faster. They push crazy hard during training.

I keep running across articles on the Kenyan marathoners. Apparently, you can pay to go and train like a Kenyan -- and with Kenyan runners -- and many do. They run three times a day, starting with a wake-up joyful run of about 8-10km, a mid-afternoon run that includes many sprints and long distances, and an evening run, also long, to shake out the lactic-acid build-up of the sprints from earlier. They eat food. No bars, no supplements, mostly carbs. They run on dirt or grass. They always run in groups, sharing energy, pushing each other along. No wonder they're fast. Oh, and it's high altitude, too.

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On another note, my Chatelaine.com post is up: a look at my first time trying to learn how to swim, age 35. I still can't quite believe I got into the pool that morning.

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Last week: four runs, one spin, one bike ride, two swims, two yoga classes. Not bad!

This week: three runs, two bike rides, two swims, three yoga classes. Not sure whether I can fit in a long run since I'll be doing a bike ride on Saturday instead. We're planning to do a short run after just to get our legs used to the transition in preparation for the duathlon in a few weeks (yikes!).