Limits

   I ran 5k in the wind and the cold today. I've been doing 5k pretty well every time I've been out lately and never had a problem with not being able to run the whole way.
   Today, I had to stop and walk twice, for about forty seconds each time. This didn't make a huge difference to my average time but it was a bit of a mess for me, psychologically.
   As is my habit, I tried to analyze the lack of energy today and none of the usual culprits made an appearance. It wasn't until I went back through my training log that I realized I'd just run three days in a row as well as five days out of the last six. On top of that, one of those runs was an 8k.
   In retrospect, I've never run three days in a row before. The 8k distance is brand new as well and came as part of the working up to 10k. It kind of took me by complete surprise when I checked the log and found out I hadn't run three days in a row, it seems like I've been running so much that having run that many days consecutively wouldn't have been that unusual.
    I'm using that as my reason for being tired today. Within the last week, it's occurred to me that I could be running a little more frequently than every other day and I'm in the middle of trying to come up with a new and more suitable training schedule. If anything, I'll avoid running four days in a row!
   So now I'm becoming more familiar with what might be my limits, at least what my limits might be right at the moment. Limits will always change and I guess that's why they need to be tested once in awhile. This evening, I'm actually looking forward to taking a day off from running tomorrow. I may feel differently when tomorrow gets here but I think I might actually force myself to take a day's rest and see what the result is!