Week #18 -- finishing up out of town

Summary for week ending Sunday, May 1, 2016:

Number of workouts: 5
Total miles run: 46.15
Average miles per run: 9.23

Miles in April: 208.46
Miles in May: 19.07
Miles in 2016: 821.95

Arriving in the Midwest on the last day of May, the weather was vile, pouring rain pretty much non-stop from time of arrival until early evening. I was not going to run in that, as I was too tired from rising at 3 a.m. for a very early flight to even guilt myself into toughing it out. By the time it had eased up, I was full of Chicago-style deep dish from Wig and Pen, so ....

The weather was marginally better Sunday -- I got my workout done in between rainy moments. I did a tough tempo workout on Sunday. Typically my first days of running in Iowa don't feel that good -- not sure why, perhaps mostly a combo of poor eating and poor sleeping over the last couple days. No exception this day, and I made myself run hard even when it wasn't feeling good. 2 mi E + 4(5 min T) + 10 mi E + scheduled 4(5 min T) + 2 mi E. I did the first part OK, though legs were not very responsive -- tempo intervals on the track at my high school and 10 easy miles on the well-known roads of the east side. Very slow and not because I was forcing myself to do 9:00/per, it's just what my legs did. Was feeling the muscles in my lower abdomen start to act up a bit, and when I went back to the track for the 4(5 min T), I got started on the first interval and it was too painful. It didn't ease up and I couldn't make myself run through it, so I bailed on the T and started to jog home. As I jogged, the discomfort cooled it enough for me to keep out for a few more slow miles, and I finished up with 19 on the day. Not especially happy about the abdomen muscle situation, not too happy that I didn't get those last T sessions in, but it was solid mileage and as good as it was going to get, so I will have to be satisfied with that.

The weather is meant to improve over the rest of the week, so at least that part should be easier. Going to have to take a day to let these lower abdomen muscles cool it. Because I have a half-marathon next Sunday, I'm going to switch Q workouts for the week -- do the longy-long on Wednesday I think, and then use the race as the long T workout.