Sunday, November 25, 2007

Manic Weekend

Today:
Run 30 miles

Yesterday:
Run 8 miles
Bike 8 miles
Lift 16 lifts
-3 sets of 12 reps

Friday:
Run 7 miles

Thursday:
Bike 40 miles

Wednesday:
Run 12 miles
Bike Commute 3 miles

Had a very up and down Thanksgiving weekend. Up and down in many ways. My training was horrible on Wednesday and Thursday. I felt very weak both days and just wasn't excited to be out running or biking either day. But then by today I had one of the best runs in a long time. I did 30 miles in 3 hours 53 minutes and felt great both mentally and physically.

For Thanksgiving Jill and I went to a dinner with some friends and several of their friends. Met a lot of great people, enjoyed some great food, and maybe a little too much wine. In all it was the most enjoyable Thanksgiving I've had in 4 or 5 years. And then Friday came around and I was in a horrible mood. I felt physically weak, like I was getting sick most of the day and it was such a dark dreary day that it looked like pre-dawn the entire day. I kept waiting for the day to start and then suddenly it was getting dark. I got out for a run as the sun was setting (not that I could actually see the sun at any point in the past week) and that made me feel a little better. Most of Saturday was still very gloomy (the weather and my mood) and then in the evening I went out to a dinner party that was quite enjoyable and got my mood back on track... at least for awhile. And then with such a great run today I couldn't have asked for a better end to my long weekend. Well, until I found out tonight that I need to go into work at 8:30 tomorrow (I don't usually work until noon on Monday) because one of my co-workers is stuck in Anchorage until the morning.

It's amazing to me though how much my training can affect my overall mood. I don't generally end up in a bad mood exclusively because of my training but it's so often the trigger that sets me off dwelling on other things that get me down. And then as soon as I have a great day of training I snap back out of it and am often in as good a mood as ever.

Training totals for the week (as of yesterday): Bike 88 miles; Run 71 miles; 19 hours time.

6 comments:

Dave said...

Wow, strange coincidences that go far beyond time.

I was feeling angry and disillusioned with any number of things yesterday, such that I almost didn't go out at all. The run set things right, very right.

Matt Hart said...

yeah i think at some point your training becomes your mood regulator.

hey what exactly is a "lift"? when you say "Lift 16 lifts, -3 sets of 12 reps" what exactly are you doing?

also where are you running in alaska this time of year for 30 miles? isn't everything covered in snow?

WynnMan said...

good work on the long run. Yep your mood definitely gets affected. I get that way if I don't get any activity in for a day. Say hello for me to Pierre Ostor, one our running pals here and RD of Arrowhead. He will be doing Iditarod trail once again this year.

Geoff said...

hey matt,
i do a mix of upper and lower body lifts. i've got about 30 different lifting excercises that i like to do and each time i go to the gym i usually do 16-20 different ones, usually half upper body and half lower body. almost all at pretty low weight, focusing on good form and lifting slow and steady. i'm a strong believer of lifting weight to emulate the type of racing you want to be doing. since my next race will be 350 miles of slow steady moving at a slow pace this is how i try to do my lifting. when i've got some shorter, faster races in my future i will change my lifting habits to match that kind of running.

right now we actually don't have any snow in juneau (last year at these time we had several feet) so my run yesterday was on a combination of muddy trail and road. once we get more snow i'll be doing my long running on snowmobile and/or xc ski trails.

Danielle Musto said...

My mood is affected by my training too. The worst days are when I don't get my workout in for some reason or another. I think that everyone knows to stay out of my way on those days :-)

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