Soft Versus Smart
There are plenty of times when the plan on paper just doesn't become a reality. This week I was hoping to continue the trend from the previous week and hit over 100km. My end result was only 46km. Monday I had to drop my run due to a combination of a lack of sleep, due to a night repeatedly being woken by one of the kids, plus I felt like I fighting some form of illness off. I hoped that maybe I could play catch up with some of the kilometres later on.
One day down, a regeneration run highlighted my legs were still trashed from the 10km race on Sunday. Then I hit the track for a few 400m repeats, ending with a 200m near sprint. I was happy to put down some extra repeats, all at a faster a pace and feeling easier than the equivalent session a couple of weeks ago.
An easy follow up run and I then a sinus infection took hold. While I was able to get through the rest of activities in my life, a fever and a splitting headache meant I chose to skip two days of running to try and get some extra sleep to help get healthy as soon as I could. This came with the obligatory head trip of trying to work out if I was just being soft and finding an excuse to skip getting up early for training, was I being smart, would I lose too much, would skipping sessions become a habit again etc. To me that is probably the worst part of being a bit unwell, but not significantly sick. Will trying make things worse or better?
Adding to the mix the body goes on the slow down, feels heavy, the legs lose their spring and you just feel flat overall, as if you lost most of the hard won fitness. Of that isn't true. I'm not sure if I'll ever get beyond that struggle in my head on this topic. Maybe I'm concerned that if I feel more comfortable with taking the rest then I will opt to skip more runs. At least the week ended with an easy run where after the few couple of kilometres my legs found that snap that feels so good.
One day down, a regeneration run highlighted my legs were still trashed from the 10km race on Sunday. Then I hit the track for a few 400m repeats, ending with a 200m near sprint. I was happy to put down some extra repeats, all at a faster a pace and feeling easier than the equivalent session a couple of weeks ago.
An easy follow up run and I then a sinus infection took hold. While I was able to get through the rest of activities in my life, a fever and a splitting headache meant I chose to skip two days of running to try and get some extra sleep to help get healthy as soon as I could. This came with the obligatory head trip of trying to work out if I was just being soft and finding an excuse to skip getting up early for training, was I being smart, would I lose too much, would skipping sessions become a habit again etc. To me that is probably the worst part of being a bit unwell, but not significantly sick. Will trying make things worse or better?
Adding to the mix the body goes on the slow down, feels heavy, the legs lose their spring and you just feel flat overall, as if you lost most of the hard won fitness. Of that isn't true. I'm not sure if I'll ever get beyond that struggle in my head on this topic. Maybe I'm concerned that if I feel more comfortable with taking the rest then I will opt to skip more runs. At least the week ended with an easy run where after the few couple of kilometres my legs found that snap that feels so good.
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