I’m an all or nothing kinda guy. I can’t do the ½ assed thing. I’m either fully 100% assed or no assed at all. This is true for me in dieting, running, biking, just about everything. I honestly don’t get it. What’s the point of making just a bit of effort? If you’re going to make a ½ assed effort, you’re going to get ½ assed results. Who wants ½ assed results? It’s no wonder folks struggle so bad with dieting. I find especially in dieting, you need to give 100% or you definitely don’t get results. This holds true in running as well. If you’re not pushing the pace and/or distance, you don’t get the results. When I work hard, I find I’m rewarded with feeling stronger, faster and recover quicker. I guess that’s what I like so much about running. You can’t cheat. Don’t push, just hang back (give a ½ assed effort), and you’ll find you can’t perform as well later when you really need to and then you’re really struggling. Although there are some folks that are just gifted in this area and seldom train yet still perform well. (Life is so unfair)
Next week in marathon madness training, is an easy week. We do 3 intense weeks running 10k two times a week followed by a long run on Saturday. We started with long runs at 16k and every week add on 2 k to increase the distance. After 3 weeks of pushing hard, we scale back for an easy week which is 40 minutes twice a week and 10k on Saturday. I’m told that you need these easy weeks to help the body recover for the next round of intense training, because you can’t keep pushing all the time or you’ll be mentally burnt out and physically your body just can’t take it and will start to break down and that's when injuries happen. Time for a massage, time to relax and reconnect with family. Logically this makes total sense to me, but still I find this difficult. Intense training, then take an easy week. I’m in the mode of push, push, push, so I find it hard now to take it easy. I know it’s the smart thing to do, so I trust and follow the plan but I often feel fat and lazy during these easy weeks.
After a ½ marathon race, I need to take about a week totally off from running. This is super tough for me. The first few days of not running are nice, but by about day 4 I find I’m climbing the walls. I need my fix. This spring after the Around the Bay 30 k race Nancy and we’re both feeling mentally and physically burnt so we took two weeks off running altogether. This was unprecedented for me. Two whole weeks of not exercising at all. I’ve never done this in the 3-4 yrs I’ve been running. I was going crazy inside, but wow my body sure appreciated the rest as I was achy all over with legs feeling like lead and really struggling. Starting back up was tough though, we felt like beginner runners again, huffing and puffing and quickly out of breath. But after a few weeks and we were back to our usual selves.
For this easy week my body is feeling perfectly fine. Unusually good in fact, which really feels awesome. Not a single ache or pain. After a hard but great 20k run Saturday, followed up on Sunday with a hard 45 k bike ride and I thought for sure I’d be feeling burnt and exhausted today. Nope, I’m revving to go still. What’s next? Whoa, time to put on the brakes.
Got me a massage booked for Tuesday and I’ll be busy packing for Camping for the following week, plus the usual kids’ soccer practices and games Tues, Wed, and Thurs nights.
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