Feeling tired? 10x200 meters might help.

It was the worst of days and then, suddenly, the best of days.

Woke up Tuesday morning, but just barely. One strong cup of coffee later...nothing. No life, no energy, eyes half shut. Went to Potts track, feeling terribly tired and dead all the way over. How would I possibly manage 200's progressively faster starting at 42 seconds going down to 34 seconds. Jogged 20 minutes, still absolutely zip, zilch. 'What's the deal here?' I thought. 'Allergies, catching something, the rainy weather?' Told coach I was a little rough today. He encouraged me to just continue on through the usual warm up process. This included plyo drills and a few strides---stiff, sore and tired all the way, then 800 meters run in 3 minutes. The 800 felt all out.

So I simply started the workout with a blank mind and no particular outcome or goal except to start on the planned numbers and just run the first one. It came in as 42, not too bad. Next one 40, then 39, 38.. I started to feel kind of good because I was hitting just under the planned numbers while relaxed and easy, plus recovering quickly. Then a couple of 36s, still well within myself. Then 34, followed by a somewhat shocking 32, shocking as it was done fairly comfortably. I was starting to feel very good!. The next one actually dipped into the high 31's. Oops. Throttled back a hair and finished with another 32, just slightly having a sense of having done some work.

I felt really really good all the rest of the day and even today feel quite good, excited about training and racing as we approach the summer months. Visions of sub 2:10 800's and sub 4:30 1500's have begun to show up.

A couple of thoughts here.

First is, as a 'mature' runner, it takes considerable patience and time to thoroughly warm up some days. This requires, well, considerable patience, as well as a postponement of judgment on how things are going.

Second is, the feedback from the ability to gradually perform and have success improved my spirits, which fed back into my body, which then allowed even better performance and feedback, and so on. There may be a lesson here in racing, race preparation, and training strategies. Something along the lines of nudging the system gradually up to some really high performance potential.