Dead Tired

I've been exhausted all week. I got up this morning sore, stiff, and feeling very sleep deprived. Then I walked for a couple of miles instead of running because my ankles didn't stop hurting after a mile of slow jogging. So here's my whiny list of reasons for feeling worn out:

• Weekly long runs and increasing mileage since August
• 140+ miles running last month
• Taught a week long class in San Jose last week
• Ran a PR half marathon on Sunday
• Ran one of my last hard workouts yesterday: 8 miles followed by 6x200m @ :59s.
  
• Catching up from last week's class by working 60+ hours this week
• Additional stress of finding out my current contract won't be renewed at the end of the quarter so I need to find a new contract.
• Having to suffer through AmIdol audition hell while waiting for the real fun to begin.
• Wishing Heroes would move on a little faster instead of leaving me hanging every week.

I really, really can't wait for the marathon to be behind me so I can go back to exercising just for fun for a while. I remember feeling similarly at the end of last year's marathon season. Being on a long, disciplined schedule has its own satisfactions and rewards, but it can also turn into a grind and take the normal pleasure out of an activity.

Fortunately, I'm now tapering for the marathon which means shorter runs and progressively less mileage. I have a 14 mile run on Sunday, one more tough lactate interval workout next week, and a 10 miler the week before the marathon. The other runs are slow and easy and less than 4 miles each. If it goes like my taper before the Dallas Marathon I should be feeling pretty fresh in a couple of weeks. Or at least I hope so.