Tough Week of Running and Meet The Pups

This has been a tough week of running. I have been feeling a little tired and weak on my runs. Even my Garmin shows my runs in the past week as unproductive. In the graph below, orange represents unproductive, red is overreaching (too high of a training load=need rest), green is productive, blue is recovery, and purple is peaking. Even my VO2 max has dropped off but starting to pick up again.

Also, most of my runs have been in Zone 4, which could be better. They should be mostly zone 2 or 3 at this stage of my training. But it is hard to keep my heart rate under 134 because I am running hills in cold weather. And my pace is pretty slow. If I go any slower, I will be walking.

The training plan is reasonable regarding mileage. There has been a slow and gradual progression. In addition to running, I am strength training twice a week. But looking at the whole picture, I may be doing too much. Other contributing factors:

• Too much hill running – a matter of where I live
• Running consistently in colder temperatures this past week – muscles are not as strong in the colder weather. It also appears that your heart rate tends to be higher when running in the cold, and your fatigue threshold is lowered. (Hence the Heart Rate Training zones and fatigue issues)
• Not eating as well, which translates to not recovering well
• Dehydration – I just simply don’t drink enough water throughout the day
• Added activity. I now have two pups and my older dog, requiring frequent outings and daily walks. These walks can be intense; the pups are strong!

Garmin data can be beneficial in looking at trends and giving feedback on how we are progressing or, in this case, not progressing. This status report was so accurate to how I was feeling. The runs were not even fun this week. And I love to run. But when fatigue sets in, everything becomes harder to accomplish.

Fortunately, this is a down week. Decreasing mileage will add some rest, and I will be working on improving my nutrition, hydration, recovery, and finding less hilly areas to run. And if I am still feeling fatigued, then I will take an extra rest day if needed. Accumulative these things can lead to injury, which I desperately try to avoid. Hopefully, next week I will be feeling stronger.

Meet The Pups

So a few months ago, a friend of ours knew someone that rescued a litter of 7 pups and their mother from a small village, Kivalina, in northwest Alaska. Getting another dog was not even on our radar. But…We initially were only going to take one of the pups, but we couldn’t decide, so we ended up with two.

Raina, named after a mountain peak behind our house, is sweet and easygoing, although she likes to instigate trouble with our older dog, Demi. When by herself outside, she can be left off leash and will stay close by. However, if Thor is left off the leash, he will disappear. And then Raina will go with him. We have had to climb the mountain near our house to hunt them down! Thor likes lots of attention and even tries to “talk” (whines with distinctive mouth movements) to us to let us know what he needs.

Raina is female and looks more like a German Shepherd, while Thor is male and resembles his mother, who is believed to be a Husky. What is pretty neat about this litter of pups is that they are all our neighbors except for one. One family on the same street adopted two, and our friend who told us about the puppies also adopted two. The last puppy was taken in by a neighbor of the person who rescued them. The mother was adopted by an acquaintance that lives close by as well.

Yes, as I mentioned, they are a lot of work, and it has yet to get any easier. But they bring us lots of joy, and we couldn’t imagine our life without them….well, maybe at times, haha.

And, of course, our Demi is nine years old and doing fantastic! She gets very annoyed by our female pup but seems to tolerate the male just fine.

Hopefully, they will become running partners one day.

Happy Running!