Lifestyle Changes

I have been in Chicago for five days and I have gone out every night. This does not make running to productive except that I can sweat out whatever food or drink goes in my body. Last night I went to a tequila bar in Old Town called Adobe, which was excellent. However, I had also planned on doing a 10-mile tempo run this morning, and tequila bars and tempo runs should never mix.

Anyways, I felt pretty good this morning and was out the door by 8. I headed south again on Lakeshore drive, and after a 1.5 mile warm-up, I was off and running. Target pace for the 10 miles was 5:45, but of course I settled into 5:35's right out of the gate. I would pay for this later. The first five miles were awesome, easy, and I could have kept going for a while. At the 5-mile turnaround, I came to a quick stop an reversed my course, but this temporarily stunned my legs and I started having some problems. I made it through 6 easy, but decided I should stop quickly at a water fountain to hydrate. I didn't stop for more than 5 seconds, when my Garmin got too sweaty and started freaking out. I came through 7 miles easy, but was playing with the watch too much and was all out of rhythm so I stopped and reset it. Once I tried to get going my legs wouldn't respond I decided to jog it in at around 6:30 pace. The last two miles of the cool down was miserable. I think it's time to rediscover an appropriate work-life balance.

The "7-mile" tempo run was actually quite good: 5:36, 5:34, 5:34, 5:32, 5:35, 5:32, 5:31. Not bad all things considered. 13 miles total today, legs a little shot, but I'm about to get on a plane bound for Spain!