The fifth week of my Disneyland Half Marathon training has proven to be the most difficult yet. It’s amazing what a difference one week can make. Week 4 was filled with a sense of personal victories. It was almost a week of dreams…a payoff for 3 weeks of hard work. Maybe because it was so great, mentally, I was ready to set myself on cruise control. I don’t know. In week 5 of my training, every day felt like a battle.

I had a great Memorial Day spent with my wife’s family. Maybe that threw me off. Tuesday was just a brutal day. I never really woke up. By day’s end, I was completely zapped of energy. So, I chose to take the day off. I thought to myself that I could somehow will my way to working out the next 5 days and everything would be fine. Well, Wednesday was challenging. However, I found the motivation to try to finish my 3.1 miles faster than I had the previous Thursday (so, a 1 second PR for the year on the 5K distance!). Thursday, was not only a gym day, but a day to step up the resistance on the elliptical machine and the weights. I was tired again before. The new weights and resistance were hard. I pushed through. However, the last set of chin ups put a strain on my neck that lingered throughout Friday. I didn’t sleep well on Thursday night and on Friday, it hurt on and off when I moved my head. So, instead of pushing it by running, I took the night off and iced my neck. That trick worked really well. By Saturday morning, the neck was pretty much at 100% and felt soooooo much better. So, I went out to run 3.1 miles again. I took a different route to check and see if the track at Cal Tech was open on the weekends (next week, I have my first “magic mile” in training and need a track). When I got to the track, I found an event going on at the track. So, that mission failed. I did enjoy taking a new path for this run. The Cal Tech campus is beautiful and so is the area surrounding the area. The heat took its toll on me, however. So much, that I had thoughts of quitting before I finished 2 miles. However, I kept talking myself into trying to make it past that point and to the familiar ending street. Glad I did. The last mile was, by far, my best. Even though I didn’t feel great at parts of this run, I still kept myself under a 12 minute per mile average!

Sunday was a hard day both emotionally and physically. Sometimes I really don’t understand why I feel so tired after going to church. Shouldn’t God reward me for going by at least having the rest of the day feel like any of my other days? This week’s message was about perseverance. Boy did I need those words. After finishing the grocery shopping, I took a nap which left me feeling more tired than before I started it. It was a hope of mine that I could do both a gym workout and a 3 mile run. That didn’t happen. I did make it to the gym with the plan of dialing down the resistance on the elliptical machine to save energy for running later. That plan failed. I did finish the workout, however with the new weights. My last set of chin ups caused me to have to stop, 5 reps from completion. I did the last 5 reps after a short break. However, I think the cause for such a break was worrying about how the new weights were going to effect me. Would I have more strain on the neck? Or would I adjust and be fine? The latter proved to be true.

So, while I did make 4 of my 5 workouts for the week, each one was a battle. I think Dory from Finding Nemo gave the best advice…

Here is snapshot for my week:

Monday – Rest Day

Tuesday – Rest Day

Wednesday – Ran 3.10 miles (1 minute PR for 2013!)

Thursday – Elliptical Machine for 30 minutes, abs, leg press, chin ups, dips

Friday – Rest Day

Saturday – Ran 3.10 miles

Sunday – Elliptical Machine for 30 minutes, abs, leg press, chin ups, dips

I’m hoping that week 6 will prove to be a rebound week. I get to do my first “magic mile” in training this Saturday as part of 6.5 miles of running!