psyched out

up until the spirit of pittsburgh it seemed like every week i could feel my running getting stronger. over the past 2 weeks it feels like with every run i am slower and losing confidence. i learned my lesson from last week with too much mileage too soon and this week after my twelve miler (horrible and slow - note to self: must fuel during long runs) i took two recovery days despite feeling that i could have run yesterday. today i went out for a 5 mile run. just wanted to do one of those runs where i settle into an 8 minute pace and go...  well i did 4 miles at an 8 minute pace, sort of. the first two miles were a few seconds over and then i cranked on the next two for 7:50ish miles. but it felt hard. the whole time. and when i hit my turn around at the end of easterly i decided to ease off. figured i could just run a 9 minute pace the way home...but it felt hard (i always seem to be slow heading west on easterly - i think its windy there???) and i gave up and switched to modified fartleks. run hard, get tired, walk, regroup, repeat. did that the 1.8 miles home. that was hard too. how is it that this pace feels hard now when i was able to do it for an hour earlier in the fall? this half marathon is psyching me out. big time. and it sucks. boo.