The fatigue is setting in

Slowly but surely, I've been closing in on my next goal of breaking 13:00 on my mile.

My legs don't appreciate this.

See, when I'm approaching a new goal, I hit every session at the gym with renewed effort, doubling down in an effort to get it done. With my mile, this means that I've been breaking my own rules, like running before I had my new shoes, ignoring the signs of fatigue, and skipping days off.

I want it so badly, I'm hurting myself.

I was able to pick up the new shoes yesterday and they're every bit as wonderful as I'd hoped they would be. The shin splints abated immediately, but I discovered a new issue: these shoes are heavy. Not heavy enough to notice when walking, but after a few minutes of running, brand new parts of my legs started aching, and I got winded much more quickly.

After making gains over the weekend, my mile time was 14:00 tonight. Two steps forward, one step back.

More than that, though, I found myself hurting more than usual. The warm-up felt off, and after only two minutes of running, my body was hurting. I forced myself through that mile, berated myself for not trying harder, then mentally lectured myself for not stopping when I should have.

I'm considering the very real possibility that I'm over-training. It doesn't feel like I am, or like I should be. I'm running only a mile or two a day, five days a week. That's not much. But I need to remember that, for my fitness level and for the small amount of time I've been at this, it is much.

This is one of those days where I'm struggling to cut myself some slack and take a break.

On a more positive note, I'm pleased to report that I bravely weathered the task of holiday baking over the weekend with hardly a calorie ingested. Faced with several dozen cookies and chocolate-dipped goodies, the only thing that seemed worth indulging in was a single warm, melty chocolate chip cookie.

If ever anyone out there needed proof that we can change without meaning to, let this be evidence. I wanted to eat cookies. I really did. I was ready to eat them, en masse, and had planned my calories accordingly. I just... couldn't. They aren't delicious to me anymore.

I regard this as a bittersweet victory. Literally.