Official Q&A for Sunday, July 08, 2018

I am finishing week 11/20 of training for my first half marathon in September. The last two weeks, I haven't been able to achieve my 8.5 mile long run goal. I start off feeling fantastic, but once mile 6-7 comes, everything just breaks down - my form, energy, pace, everything - and my legs start feeling heavy and sluggish.

I run 5x/week which usually looks something like: 2/4/5/4/Long Run, averaging roughly 20-23 miles a week at the moment. This will be increasing slightly over the next few weeks. I've tried experimenting with fueling during my runs and my water intake, eating a different/bigger breakfast (oatmeal/banana/peanut butter/maple syrup seemed to help today), and running a slower pace, yet nothing has helped so far as I still lose it during my last two miles. It's frustrating and making me anxious that I won't be able to run the entire half if I'm already struggling with 8.5 miles. The last long run I was able to complete was 8 miles two weeks ago, and even then, I was extremely tired and slow towards the end.

It's been very warm and humid where I live lately, so could it simply be a matter of the heat getting to me? Am I possibly running too much during the week, and if so, should I be looking at incorporating cross training into my plan? Fatigue is to be expected with training, but the last two weeks, I've felt tired while running and I'm at the point where I almost dread doing it altogether.

Advice? Thoughts?

/r/running Thread