This week, I finally found fatigue. One of the themes of this training block has been how fresh I’ve felt despite doing high-to-me mileage. Two factors conspired to cause a drastic change to that theme during my Sunday run. First, I carried a fair amount of cumulative fatigue from the previous week. Second, and probably just as significant, since this is the half way point of the block, the training plan switched from gym-based muscular endurance workouts to uphill intervals. The uphill workout that I did (3x10min@Z3) very clearly put more stress on the body as a whole, although some of that additional stress is probably due to the change in stimulus rather than due to uphill intervals being intrinsically harder than gym workouts.

Whatever the specific reason, my Sunday run was an absolute slog. The last time I can remember feeling equally out of gas during a Z2 effort is several years ago when I did Festive 500 riding a mountain bike. This time around, though, I have a way to contextualise the feeling. I’ll just tell myself: “However tired you feel right now, it’s nothing compared to how you’re going to be feeling during the run at Black Canyons.” That’s a quick way to make any long effort, however fatigued, quite a bit more bearable.