Its been a rough week so far for a couple of reasons, first, this insomnia is starting to bother me worse than it ever has. I wrote last Friday about about not being able to sleep for a few nights in a row, and it hasn’t gotten any better since (we’re on over 2 weeks now) …. I’m just not sure what the issue is because i’m tired, really tired actually because i’m training real hard and working late, but regardless of what I try to do, I just can’t sleep past 4-5 hours at a time because I just wake up and can’t fall asleep again .. then sometimes after laying for 2-3 hours all restless and all, I fall asleep finally and end up having to get up because my alarm goes off. I just can’t seem to win.

So even though i’m dead tired now .. I managed to stretch my mid week training runs out to 9 miles on Tuesday and 11 miles on Wednesday. Tuesday’s run was actually the best i’ve had in awhile due to the weather, and the music I had going and then topped it off with a nice pre-sunrise, how does it get any better? I got the 9 miler in at an 8:30/mile pace (which is good for me over a long distance). Now Wednesday, I would call that a hectic run and even though my overall time was excellent at 1 hour 32 minutes, most of the speed was in the last 2 miles, but let me tell the story… I knew I had to get back to the house by 7am to do something, so I set my alarm for 4:55am, with the plan to be on the road by 5:20, thinking that i’d run it in 99 minutes at the most if I did a 9 minute mile.. you know 1 hour 29 minutes .. but look again, I WAS WRONG, thats actually 1 hour 39 minutes. So after I woke up at 2am, laid for a few hours, fell asleep finally at 4:15am and woke up 40 minutes later with the alarm. I got myself dressed, headed downstairs to find that I never put the water in the coffee maker the night before (it was supposed to brew on the timer). Great, I really need my pre-run coffee so I was in panic. I decided to wait while it brewed the coffee while I finished suiting up for my run. It got done, I slammed a big cup and headed out at 5:25am (note, thats 5 minutes later than I planned).

So for the most part, the run itself was fine, I had a good pace going … music was grooving, weather was mild .. until I started checking my time at around mile 9 and finally realized that my time estimate for this run was wrong and I knew I had to speed it up if I had any chance of getting home in time. I had to have done the last 2 miles of that run at under an 8 minute mile because I was absolutely beat when I got back home, but I got home by 7am. Then I was late getting into a shower for work, eating breakfast and getting out the door.. in return I hit all the traffic on the way to the office. It was a good run, but turned out to be a bad day overall.

Today’s run though, my speed workout, wasn’t that great because first I was tired (no need to elaborate on why) and second, it was cold. I mean really cold. The forecast had indicated there was NO wind at all with the temps in the low 20’s, and I think they were right. Its weird how it can actually feel colder with no wind at all, then with the wind blowing in your face .. but it really was cold in a different way. I guess you have to experience it to know what I mean, but my 800m pace was awful today, just awful. It proves that not every run is a good run, regardless of how you try …

The good part with it being close to the end of January is that we are through the statistical ‘coldest part’ of the winter. That doesn’t mean it won’t get frigid again, but the chances of it happening tend to go down as more days continue to pass. Spring isn’t that far out believe it or not.. under 10 weeks until the first marathon.

So as I struggle to find the answer to my insomnia, I expect to hit a 20 miler this weekend .. first of the season. I’m not sure how this lack of being to sleep is going to effect me in the long term and how it’ll effect my training, but if it doesn’t get better, its going to be time to see the doctor …

I just really need some sleep ..