OK, That hurt

Two and a half weeks of inconsistent training has reared its ugly head and bitten me in the butt. My trip to San Diego and business in New York had me missing several days and I've only been able to run 4 times and swim even less. My cycling seems to have held up though but that's always been my strongest element. It rained all this morning and I was relegating myself to getting on the treadmill at some point to get my run in but it started to clear up in the late afternoon and I managed to get outdoors. It was long run day so I wanted to get 14-15 km in but I was more interested in what my pace would be like after the inconsistency. I started off faster then normal and this could have been a mistake. My first 2 km were at :15 to :20 seconds faster pace then I normally start off at and it may have affected the rest of the run. While my legs felt good that's where it stopped, the rest hurt. I can normally run at a 4:55 - 5:00 pace comfortably but today I was struggling at 5:10 - 5:15. The first 5 km were painful but I got into a bit of a rhythm at around 5.5 km and was hoping that it would get better as I went. No dice. I ran at 5:00 - 5:10 but it was still uncomfortable. By this time I'm easily at a 4:50 pace and while it is a bit of an effort it's not difficult to maintain. The evidence of my slipping backwards came at the end of and after my run. Normally my last km is my fastest but today it wasn't. I usually pick up my pace to finish, its hard but not painful but today I couldn't do it. And after I finish I always recover fairly quickly but today I didn't. I finished at 15 km at a 5:03 pace. Slow for my liking and worse then that it hurt. I sure hope that a few more runs will get me back to my previous level soon.