A rude awakening

While home in Canada over the Christmas break, I purchased a lottery ticket as I do, for some reason, every time I am visiting Canada. I never purchase lottery tickets here in the U.S., and I never purchased them regularly when I lived in Canada. But once or twice a year, I shell out $2 to play my chances at winning millions (tax-free). I never win. I did, however, win a different kind of lottery over the holidays: the New York Road Runners lottery for the NYC half-marathon, March 18.

Hooray?

It's now just over nine weeks until race day, and though I am running 30-40 miles per week, most of those miles are slow, and about half of them are lumped into the weekend. Proper training for a half-marathon demands speedier, longer runs mid-week, and I currently don't have much time for more than four miles before work.  Frankly, I'm not sure I have the energy, either.

In a determined effort to launch my half-marathon training this week with a speedwork session, however, I set my alarm for 5 am on Tuesday (so that, hopefully, I'd be home in time to look after Ryder while Zdenek got ready for work). But my Tuesday morning workout ended up sucking for a number of reasons:

1. I was totally exhausted. 
2. I had no time to make/drink coffee, and no time to take an, ahem, "natural break" before leaving the apartment. 
3. The Park was pitch black and kind of deserted. 
4. I couldn't run on the reservoir where the distances are marked because it was so dark, so I ran on the road with all of the other hardcore nuts who are out there at 5:20 am.  This meant that I had no idea how far/fast I was running. For all I know, I worked too hard or not hard enough (the latter is more likely). 
5. About 20 minutes in, I had to take a natural break -- and speedwork is possibly the worst thing to be doing when you have to take natural break -- but the Park's public restrooms weren't yet open and I'll be damned if I was going to go back home after I had gotten up so early. 
6. I finally headed to the reservoir to finish some of my shorter intervals. Though I could barely see the distance markers, it was far worse that I could barely see the ground, and that path is not completely even.  I was literally fumbling in the dark, and am lucky I didn't twist an ankle. 
7. I finally returned home, and then Zdenek had to look after Ryder while I took a shower, anyway, so really we didn't save much in terms of time.

I know that I will run 13.1 miles on March 18, but after Tuesday's experience, I'm not holding out hopes for any PRs.  I probably have a better chance of winning millions.