Why the long face?

Because running has been difficult the last few days. Sunday I wanted to do 13-14 miles with about half of it at a good pace, maybe 7:15 per mile. I was only able to manage 10 at an average pace of 7:55. Not so inspiring. Yesterday was a planned day off but today I turned off the alarm and slept in. Now I'm stuck with the prospect putting in a few miles on the treadmill. Boring.

I must balance all this out with a couple positive marks though. Last Saturday I did another of my FH workouts. Although the program calls for me to do 8k in 33 minutes, I completed 8k in 34:04. Slightly off the mark but I'm happy with that for a baseline to start with. I ran that around an oval that is about 2 miles from our apartment. The oval itself is 1,325 meters and is marked every 100 meters. So 6 laps in 5:28 with an additional 50 meters would have given me the correct pace. I finished with these splits:
5:30
5:34
5:35
5:41
5:52
5:39
0:11
So I was slightly off the pace from the start but to be honest the only split I'm really disappointed in is the 5:52. Given the laps before and after I think that was just a matter of losing concentration and allowing my pace to slip. This workout is likely the cause of my lackluster performance on Sunday.

Tomorrow I'm running in the Tamako ekiden. Each leg is about 6k. I'm not sure what to expect. I think it will be more off the pace of my 5k PB than a normal 6k would be; I just don't feel like I'm running as well right now. Can I even keep it under 4:00/k?