Uncontrollable pace.

For reasons I'll soon be journaling on, my ability to make entries here has been severely limited for some months now. Those reasons appear to be in resolution and I now find I'm able to string words, thoughts and sentences together. At least a bit.

My running has continued, in preparation for a date in November for the City of Oaks Marathon, in Raleigh NC.

Key to my success, such as it is, has been the ability to remain injury-free despite the accumulation of miles in what for me is a sustained effort of higher intensity running. I've been eating, resting and sleeping more than under other conditions, and have closely followed the advice of Coach.

I had a good learning from last week, and I'm glad I survived it injury-free.

Thinking I'd take advantage of an off-week to get some necessary season-ending landscaping tasks done in my mountain home, I finished a stone retaining wall, back-filled it with topsoil and planted a large spruce tree. Up at 4:00 Saturday morning, I was out on the Peak to Peak Highway gathering materials for the wall--several dozen 40-50-lb boulders. All went well and I had good energy for my Saturday run.

The only problem I had with the run was I was incapable of going slow. Over and over and over again I'd come to a complete stop, intentionally plod one foot in front of the other at the slowest pace I could control, and within 15 seconds I'd be back at overspeed. Wound up the ten-miles with an average pace of 10:53, far faster than my 11:30-12:30 goal. Nothing I could do allowed me to slow it down.

Trying to figure it out, I was initially distracted by two other changes I've made recently. My nutrition research has led me to discover a significant shortage of chromium in my diet, and I've begun remedying that with truly significant effects in my blood-glucose levels--far in excess of any other change I've ever made, including use of prescription glucophage. Secondly, I've been slowly shaping my gait to what I think is a bit more streamlined form, toes pointed forward with less splaying. It feels good and I know is a more efficient run.

So I wondered whether the speed issue was related to either of those.

Saturday night I awakened in the night and realized the speed problem was because I was unable to stand up straight--back muscles in fatigue from the landscaping work. Leaning forward as I ran, I just wanted to keep my body upright. My legs were simply trying to keep me up. I don't recall ever being so helpless in controlling my pace in running. Very, very exasperating.

For Tuesday's 8-miler, I'll return to Slow. I hope.

And be much more careful in landscaping while in intense training.