Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Staying In Bed Too Long :-(

This morning, I heard my alarm and I immediately turned it off. I didn't do it purposely...it just happened.

By the time I rolled around to look at the clock, it was already 5:50am. YIKES! I had a 5 mile run scheduled and I had promised my wife that I'd take my older son to school (need to leave the house by 7:30am). I got my behind out of bed and threw my running clothes on (laid them out the night before - shorts and a long sleeve shirt as the weather was going to be in the high 30s this morning)...I was out of the house by 6:05.

I decided to cut the run short by a mile so I would not be too rushed when I got back into the house. I figured I was supposed to do 5 miles today and 4 miles on Thursday - so I'll just swap them. My runs the day after speedwork are usually awesome anyhow, so I don't think I'd mind the extra mile then :-)

Actually, today's run was great. I ran a bit fast - my average HR was 152, and there were many times I would look down at my watch to see a HR at 160 and make myself slow down. My pace was a 10:20 mile - actually 20 seconds per mile faster than my Tuesday easy run last week at the same average HR. So, I'm really seeing the gains from last week's 40 mile total including the 10 mile speedwork and the 20 mile long run!

I listened to some Israeli "mizrachi" (middle-eastern influenced) pop music this morning. Most notably Sarit Hadad and Hamsa. Good beats for a good run!

Later this morning I finally figured out why yesterday was so tough for me. There were many times where I've left the house at 6:30am and didn't return until after 8:30pm and it didn't bother me much before...so what happened yesterday??? It hit me when my 2 1/2 year old son came downstairs this morning and gave me a big hug. I didn't see either one of my kids the entire day yesterday! That's what was bothering me. How could I not figure that one out???

I guess the other times where I had 14 hour days with work were either before we had kids, or while I was working from home - where I would at least get a break and see the kids for a little bit. There had been days where I didn't see the kids due to me being out of town, but there have been very few days - if any - in the past six years where I have been in town and not seen my boys. I'm hoping days like yesterday are few and far between.

2 comments:

Rick said...

I did several swaps in my training runs. Not a big deal. Heck, I missed several of my runs in my training program due to my guarded physical condition!

You're a good dad, Mike. Hey, does one "wish" another anything on Passover? Do you still have a celebratory meal following Passover?

Mike Fox said...

Rick - If I were in the pain that you were in, I most likely would have postponed my marathon goal until a few months (or years) later. You should feel really proud that you fought through the hardships and reached the finish line.

As for Passover - you can wish people a "Happy Passover". I just added a post on preparing the house for Passover, so I hope you enjoy it.

If you have any other specific questions that you don't want to post as a comment, feel free to email me directly at mikefox85 at gmail dot com.