That was hard.

All of it. This week.

Was hard.

Really, really hard.

I don't know what to say without sounding like I'm whining. I hate whining. So I'm just going to say what I'm thinking in the hopes that it's not coming out like whining, but is coming out factual.

I got my butt handed to me this week.

Last weekend's long run (which was 6 days ago, actually) took a lot out of me. This week was rough at school, so even my rest days were not really rest days. I don't think I really got to recover enough, but such is life. The show must go on. I focused on good nutrition and attempted to get some sleep, despite having two sick little ones early in the week.

The routine was off, and I let it get to me.

I focused on negative energy that was hitting me this week, and I did not have my head in the right place. Not Tuesday, not Wednesday during my Yassos that left me in an exhausted heap on the floor after they were over, and certainly not today.

I had to do my 20 miler alone for a myriad of reasons. Mostly because it needed to be a) early b) near my house and c) Ana was gone.

It was supposed to look like this:

5 miles warmup

5 miles MRP

2 miles @9:00

6 miles @MRP

2 miles cooldown

It looked like this:

5 miles warmup cursing my Garmin for losing satellites and leaving me hanging

5 miles MRP where I needed to stop 2 times and lose my marbles

2 miles: one at 9, one at MUCH slower

1 mile trying to get to MRP and not coming close

7 miles very, very slowly and with many stops--2 to refill bottles (I drank 60 ounces in this run!) and one to sit on some guy's rock in his front yard and put my head in my hands

Total miles: 20

Average pace: 9:00/mile

Pathetic stops and self-doubt: much

I need to do a few things:

1. Eat a bigger breakfast. Clearly my one-packet of instant oatmeal is NOT cutting it at all.

2. Try to recover more. Sleep is a huge issue for me, and it was even more so with my kids being sick Sunday-Tuesday and with school dumping quite a load of stress on me this week. Simply put: I did not sleep much this week, and it killed me.

3. I need to surround myself with positive ideas and not negative.

Looking back at the plan, I did some solid cross-training on top of 37.1 miles ran with my overall average for those miles at 8:49. That is huge for me. I hate to say this was NOT a good week. That is a huge week for me and the fact that I'm able to do that is a huge improvement.

I think this solo run was good for me. It was good to be alone, to bonk alone, to feel how bad that sucked alone, so that I don't have to feel that again. I learned quite a bit about what I need to do here the next 3 weeks. And most of that work needs to be done in this big thing on top of my shoulders.

I am done with this week. I am ready for a week to recover mentally more than anything here--to actually, finally rest. I'm off school until May 2nd and I am hoping this will do wonders for my sleep and stress levels. Of course, when I get back the AP test is that Friday, but I feel like I needed to get those kids to the Election of 2000 before break and I did. It was crazy fast and stressful, but I did. The rest is up to them now. I told them they weren't going to go from a score of 1 to a score of 5 in the four days when we get back. There's no cramming for this test; either you have done the work all year like you were supposed to, or you didn't. End of story.

The same is true for me. I know I have done everything I possibly could. The hard work has been put in the bank. Now I need to really focus on fixing my mistakes from this week, believing in myself, and moving forward.