Each Day Is a Gift

Had a rough morning, took hubby to lab tests at 7am, to dentist at 8 which was supposed to be a cleaning/check up, but found that he had an abcess and an decaying tooth where this front teeth bridge was.  Anyway he ended up getting worked on for nearly 4 hours.  Along with his terrible virus laryngitis, cough, diarrhea, he had a miserable day. Didn't go for run till mid afternoon, at least lunch was somewhat digested.  35F little breeze sunny. Wore l/s top, Boston jacket, light headband, UA capri. 

Today's workout calls for 8x1 mile repeat @10:00 pace with 3min recovery, 1mi WU, 1 mi CD.

Ran 1 mile WU to MCT, paused briefly for dynamic stretch.  Began mile repeats on MCT.

Splits     Moving Time     Distance     Avg Pace

1             11:21                  1.00           11:27

2              9:33                   1.00            9:36

3              3:00                   0.27           11:08

4              9:36                   1.00            9:43

5              3:00                   0.18           16:15

6              10:00                 1.00           10:04

7               3:00                  0.15            19:45

8               9:37                  1.00              9:40

9               3:00                  0.20             15:07

10             9:40                  1.00              9:47

11              3:00                 0.13             22:16

12              9:50                 1.00              9:55

13              3:00                 0.14              20:52

14              9:39                 1.00               9:46

15              3:00                 0.15              19:49

16              9:45                 1.00               9:53

17              3:00                 0.15              20:38

18              14:51               1.00              14:57

11.4 miles total in 2:08:48.  AP: 11:19

The 3rd mile repeat was on a slope, ran 1st half down then 2nd half back up, so that mile repeat was the slowest @10:04.  Had to really push to stay on pace.  The 3 min recovery got progressively slower went from jogging to walking.   Calves started to tighten up on the last 3 repeats, after the 3 min recovery and about 200m into the mile repeat the calf muscles would tightened but ok when I kept pushing the pace.  But after the last (8th) repeat, I walked for the 3min recovery and could hardly jogged during the cool down mile home so had to walk a little and jog a little and that mile took nearly 15 min.

This muscle cramping issue has been my demise at the last 5K of every marathon and last 1.5-2 miles of every half marathon race.  It's as if my muscles figured it's quitting time and swithced to revolting mode.  In today's workout, the muscles rebelled after the 3 min recovery on the 5th mile repeat and the remainder of the workout where the cramps would come on 200m into the mile repeat. What's with that? What to do???  Is it muscle fatigue brought on sooner with threshold pace or neuro-transmitter issue with the mind sending message to the muscles that it's quitting time (near end of race) Grrrr??!!!