Wilted

I ran for an hour and swam for 40 minutes. Metatarsal pads in my running shoes seemed to take care of the suspected/feared budding neuroma, but that's about the only good thing that can be said about the day's activities. Well, that and the fact they got done. Mediocre run. Bad swim.

I felt very tired from the start today. Losing that hour didn't help, but this fatigue went deeper and I'm trying to figure out what led to it. I put in a pretty big week (my week runs Monday through Sunday), stepping it up a bit, but didn't think it was outlandish: 12 workouts—four runs, five swims, three bikes—totaling 14.5 hours. But I also finished last week with a race, and even though it was only five miles, I ran that sucker hard while being in no condition to do so. I think after you've done a few 50-milers and a bunch of marathons, you begin to think, if subconsciously, that a five-miler is never a big deal. Well, five easy isn't. Even five on the track isn't. But a race in February? The power of such intensity has to be respected. Then, too, several of my swims and bikes this week were challenging if short worouts. So all that might just explain my fatigue. That and, you guessed it, continued insufficient sleep—a perennial topic here.

OK. The six-hour nights must become seven. And the seven-hour nights must become eight. It's time to get serious.