Notes
-- Garmin Connect Import --
Finally catching up with the backlog of logging.
Long story short this race was not what I hoped it would be. In the hours since I've spent lots of brain power pouring over any number of different factors that may have influenced why I didn't feel better. And basically what I've come up with is I just didn't have it- whatever "it" is.
I also flop back and forth between two, opposite mentalities regarding these kinds of days.
The first is something along the lines of "It doesn't really help anything to dwell or to think too hard about why I felt the way I did, because more than likely I'll never actually know, and its better to just move on and look ahead to the next phase of training.
And the second contradicts the first: "It's important to reflect, to pour over training logs, to try to remember back to the week leading up, to think about all the different factors, because over time that's how you see patterns, learn more about yourself as a runner and as a racer, and become more in tune with what you need and why".
So I sit somewhere between those two trains of thought.
For the most part, the day was just sort of meh.
The goal was to go out and run marathon effort for 9-10 miles and hopefully feel relaxed, and yes I was out a bit fast, but I somewhat corrected, and event 4-5 miles in I was entirely uncomfortable, and paces that I thought should have felt relaxed, didn't feel relaxed at all. By miles 7-8 I was falling off and struggling to hold paces I've held in workouts, and by mile 10 I gave up and jogged it in.
Oh well. In the end I'll do the same thing now that I would have done if the race had gone spectacularly: take a few days recovery, and then get back to work, knowing there are bigger things on the horizon.