[Scratch]

I ran some yesterday morning. It was my first strenuous sort of activity since the 5K on the 14th of June. It was interesting some, a bit dismaying and depressing as well.

For weather in the summer around here, it was about perfect for running yesterday. Upper 50s, fairly dry and little humidity, I went out with a game plan of running at easy comfortable pace and at any signs of some sort of trouble, I would shut down the run and walk back home.

The good part of things was I found I could run a nice easy pace that covered a mile in right around 10 minutes. Legs felt good, breathing was comfortable and I ran out for a period of 20 minutes and turned around. As I was coming back, that's when I began to notice it. My legs weren't feeling tired, they felt good. My breathing was fine. But I started getting that feeling that I get up back up behind and between my eyes -- like I'm getting sleepy. See I finally recognized what that tired feeling really is -- it's not anything in the muscles, it's a feeling like it would be really nice to stretch out and take a nap.

So I began to feel that and I felt it slowly grow as I loped along. Finally I decided that when I reached that next intersection, I would hit stop on the watch and just walk the rest of the way in.

So there it is. Everything else felt good and rested, but there's some threshold of activity level that will result in me becoming sleepy. It's remarkably similar to the sleepy kind of feeling I remember from the initial bout of mono back in 2004 and then the shorter recurrence in 2006. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday, so I plan to go over this with him, see what he advises and thinks.

My own thinking right now is try to get some activity but be careful with it -- take at least 2 days of rest in between any thing of some physically stressful level and when I do something like easy running of yesterday morning, shut the running down as soon as I begin sensing the sleepy feeling coming in. Hopefully over time I'll be able to easy run for longer stretches and maybe when I get up to where I can run easy for an hour without getting sleepy, start running 3 times a week and hopefully get on track to get the miles and training in to run the half-marathon in Philadelphia again this year.

It's a bit frustrating right now, although I feel like I made a useful observation with yesterday, finally pinning down what that fatigue feeling is that I get.

[Scratch]

I tried running on Saturday, it didn't go as well as Wednesday's run. After about 10 minutes I was already feeling gassed some while running at a slower pace and then after another 5 minutes I began walking. Bleah!

Had my doctor's this morning, went over everything with him, going to get blood drawn to check for a variety of possibilities. I don't think it can be an overtraining issue anymore, I've done hardly anything the last two weeks after two light weeks in the beginning of the month -- if there weren't something causing something, I should be feeling better by this point. The doctor felt the same and that's why we're checking bloodwork for thyroid stuff and deficiencies and the Epstein-Barr virus.

[Scratch]

Got a call from the doc's office on Thursday, all my blood chemistry looked good, nothing falsifies my recurrent mono hypothesis so I still feel that's the most likely and plausible explanation.

Maybe in good news, yesterday for the first time in a long while, I woke up with a feeling not only of just feeling non-tired, I felt there was some extra pep in reserve. For the last two weeks, I've felt weak some in my muscles, like if I went to try to do overhead presses I would hardly be able to lift anything. Yesterday I almost felt like I could lift and put some oomph into it.

I woke up this morning and felt pretty good again. I was able to run 40 minutes and I didn't get the sleepy tired feeling while out there. It was a bit of a miserable run, it was extremely humid, but at no point did I feel the sleepiness take over and make me want to stop. My nose did start running some too which troubles me, but I'll see how I feel over the next couple few days and see about running again on Wednesday. I hope that goes okay and I'll be able to think, "Yeah, we've turned the corner." If so, then I can gradually work my way back into running this month and hopefully begin piling up some miles August through October so I can run a decent half-marathon in November.

[BrianSCohen]

Scratch,

Glad to hear you are feeling better. You may never know exactly what is going on, but if it clears up, who cares?

[Scratch]

Originally Posted by BrianSCohen

Scratch,

Glad to hear you are feeling better. You may never know exactly what is going on, but if it clears up, who cares?

Yeah, I think my body's systems are finally moving back towards normal, although it may take some time before I get everything back.

This morning I ran again and did about 30 minutes, didn't get sleepy tired, tested pushing things a bit harder. Last Saturday when I ran anytime my heart rate got up around 150 I could feel that I needed to slow myself down or pay a price. Today I was able to run some stretches with the heart rate going up over 150 and not have it feel like I was in danger of pushing too hard and start to feel sleepy. So I think all of that shows that my body is regaining the work capacity I should have, although it's still far short of what my level would have been like 2 months ago. I just need to be patient.

I'm even tempted to maybe try a few lifts tomorrow morning, just some sets to test what my strength levels are like.

[Scratch]

Let's see, where did I last check in with this?

In general, I'm feeling much better than I have over the past 6 weeks about, especially the past month. The absolute nadir was probably around 3 weeks ago.

Last Friday evening, I did a small strength test as a gauge of what's going on, standing overhead press, got 100 lbs without much trouble, 105 was a bit more work, 110 lbs felt like the limit so I stopped there. My PR for the SOHP is 115 lbs, although on that day I think I could have done 120 lbs if I hadn't dithered so much on lesser weights.

Ran on Sunday, it was a bit miserable in the heat and humidity, but I did 3.7 miles which is about as long of a run that I've done in some time, kept the heart rate low because any time I started going up over 145 bpm it felt kinda harsh. Probably because of the heavy air and heat along with how on Saturday I had walked and golfed 18 holes in the afternoon heat and humidity.

So now this morning, for the first time in a while, I ran with only one day of rest in between runs. It went well. The weather was much better which helped, but on the back portion of the out and back I did it felt like I had more to push with so I did, spent around 15 minutes with my heart rate around 150 bpm or higher, and took it up over 160 bpm on the final hill I always run up if I'm running at home. And I never felt anything like fatigue coming in to knock me down. Really good sign, I think. Really good sign.

I'm going to move forward with my plan to run 3x this week, my first week that'll have 3 runs in it since early June.

I think another noteworthy sign that my body is coming back around to normal capacity is that my basal dose has been dropping downwards again, some of that might be that I'm getting a bit more active again, but it started dropping before that too really. I peaked up at needing 26u of Lantus, I'm now down to 20u.

[Scratch]

Man, it's nice feeling more energetic again. Although I have to wonder if I'm a bit crazy thinking it's nice to be able to run again when it's a bit yucky humid and warm like this.

I ran 3.8 miles and for around 20 minutes I ran with a heartrate just under what would be my heartrate for tempo pace running. My pace is still off from what I think I ought to be able to do, but with the high humidity and me still getting over whatever caused my downtime, that's to be expected. Mostly I'm thrilled that this is my 3rd run in a period of 5 days, something I haven't been able to do for quite a while now.

I'm going to try to do at least 5 miles coming up this weekend. Based on how that goes and feels, I will try to figure out what to do next week.

[Scratch]

I did a long run today. More like a long run/walk because I used a heart rate monitor and wanted to be careful with the heat and humidity that's built up the last few days.

7.2 miles. Legs felt pretty good at the end, felt a bit stressed with the weather conditions, but I am feeling so much better over just a couple of weeks ago.

Gave me my first week of double digit mileage since early June.

[Scratch]

3.8 miles this morning, I kept it on the easier side mostly because it's just yucky humid here in the mid-Atlantic but if I'm feeling good on Thursday morning I'd like to do up around 25 to 30 minutes of tempo paced running on a middish length run.

[Scratch]

4.15 miles today in place of yesterday, when I woke up and the power went out about 5 minutes later. Couldn't chance on doing a run, getting all sweated up, and then being unable to shower before work. Power still hadn't come back on by the time I did leave for work.

I didn't feel so great on today's run, I took it up to tempo pace for around 15 minutes, had wanted to do that for around 25 minutes, but it just wasn't there so I backed off and took it easy the rest of the way. I may or may not do a short run tomorrow morning, I'm ambivalent on that, plan on a little over 8 miles for Sunday.

[Scratch]

I opted not to run yesterday, although the weather was much nicer. It felt like I needed rest more than running though.

So I ran today and it was sticky humid. Yuck. Grinded out 8.1 miles, drank a lot of water along the way. I was happy to see my pace pick up some over last weekend's long run while the average heart rate remained nearly the same -- good sign that my body is continuing to recover and I'm getting back towards where I want to be.

Went through my log for some comparisons, to last year at this time and then to this year when I ran the same route as I ran today but it was in April and 25 degrees cooler.

I'm doing better than last year at this time. Last year on this weekend I did a long run of 6.2 miles with a pace of 12:28 min/mile and avg HR of 145.

Check this out though --

today, 8.1 miles, 11:56 min/mile pace, avg HR of 138, 73 degrees and humid.
April 27, 8.1 miles, 10:48 min/mile pace, avg HR of 138, 48 degrees and overcast.

[Scratch]

3 mile run this morning, I will be taking it on the easier side this week because last year I did pretty well with a schedule of making every 3rd week an easy week. I finally got in 2 good weeks of running these last 2 -- 14 miles and 16 miles and it probably makes plenty of sense to be catious some as I get ramped back up after that miserable June and first half of July.

[Scratch]

Just when you think it can't possibly get more humid, more sticky, more disgusting weather to run in, you get today. I just ran 3 miles all of it very easy except for the end now where I like to sprint up my last bit of uphill.

I wrote down mileage targets, weekly along with the long run distance, for the next 16 weeks up to November 23rd and Philly. My hope is to put in some fairly significant miles for me, along with more and longer long runs than what I was able to build to last year. It might end up being pretty tough, but I would really like to make some significant improvement. I need to make a fair amount of improvement before I'll make the decision whether to pretty much devote a year of time to taking on a marathon.

[kstreeter513]

Originally Posted by Scratch

Just when you think it can't possibly get more humid, more sticky, more disgusting weather to run in, you get today.

Dude, I hear ya loud and clear. Since the weather has gotten really hot and humid, my weekly mileage has suffered dramatically. I simply can't find the energy to do any run over ten miles and most are around 4-6.

But I'll still take the extreme heat over the cold though. Fall will be hear soon enough and the running season will get better!!

[Scratch]

I ran on Saturday, 5 miles, it super humid cuz I went out right after some thunderstorms rolled through.

Today I got a good tempo run in, ran for around 21.5 minutes up at my comfortably hard pace and I was pleased to get my goal in as I need to start getting some harder paced running in.

I've also been working in a program of lifting now -- I do overhead presses and barbell rows, then take 2 days of rest from strength work, then do bench presses and chin ups, rest 2 days, and cycle through again.