I was supposed to run 20 miles Saturday. That didn’t happen.

At mile 7, I was feeling horrible. My legs were heavy and felt like they were pushing through mud. I was breathing hard, which is unusual. I looked like the picture to the left: sweaty and crabby. At mile 9, I sat down beneath a tree in Forest Park, guzzled a bunch of Gatorade and decided I couldn’t go on. So I ran home, for a total of about 11.3  miles. 

I drank more Gatorade and water. I ate a yogurt. I checked on IronmanLive.com to see how Dr. Ed Wolfgram was doing in the Hawaiian Ironman. (He’d end up finishing in 16:48 later that day). Then I decided I’d try to run some more. How could I not? A 75-year-old man 9-months out of open heart surgery was doing an Ironman!!! So I put on a dry shirt (Boy, did THAT feel good) and hit the streets again.

For the first mile, I thought maybe my earlier physical breakdown was actually a mental one, because I felt pretty good. By mile 2, I was feeling sluggish, breathing hard and running really slowly again. So I drank water at 2.25 miles and turned around, adding about 4.5 miles onto my 11.3 miles for a total of about 15.8 miles. 

I haven’t run since. I’m worried that I’m overtrained which is a wretched state to go into a marathon. The best cure for that is more rest than running. But it’s also possible that I didn’t eat enough carbs in the days before Saturday; or that sneezing hundreds of times Friday evening and Saturday morning due to allergies left me exhausted; or that it was just too warm again, which I refuse to use as an excuse, since it breezy.

I plan on running 6.5 miles later today and will keep you posted on how I feel.  In the meantime, does anyone have any thoughts on this or words of encouragement? I could certainly use them.