HAPPY WEEKEND!!! Oh, that’s just for me??
MWUUAAAAHAHAHAHAHA (evil laugh). Okay, okay, I won’t rub it in.
There are definitely pros and cons to both the 9-5 schedule and the student schedule.
Pro for student: very flexible schedule, Con for student: your work is NEVER done, there is always something you should be doing.
Pro for 9-5: you are DONE at 5 and DONE on the weekends, completely free!, Con: not so flexible schedule.
Grass is always greener, right? That 9-5 grass is going to be looking reeeeally green near come November. Anyway, I had a lot of ideas for today’s post, but those are just going to have to wait! After my run yesterday morning I decided I wanted to write this post about something very important that happened in my marathon training this week:
I skipped a run.
Not just a little run, but a big run. Every week we have a mid-week run that’s been getting longer and longer and this week’s was 9. I skipped it.
It was HARD to skip but it was oh so necessary. After my big hike in Colorado, my legs have been really sore and I haven’t given them a break. I crammed in all my runs that I had to push back from HLS and managed to hit every mile. Well, this all caught up to me this week. When I headed out for my run on Tuesday, I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. It wasn’t just not-pretty, it was fugly. I’m not sure what the "f" stands for on fugly, but I just assume it’s another step down from ugly.
My legs weren’t sore, they were fatigued. Every step was hard and tiring. I honestly would have stopped a lot earlier had I not done an out and back course. I was actually texting people each time I stopped, asking questions to figure out the reason for this fatigue.
I came to a conclusion: not enough rest, not enough iron and not enough carbs.
I already mentioned my thoughts on being low in iron, but I also realized during that 4 mile run that I hadn’t been eating many carbs. I’ve been experimenting with paleo recipes because they look and sound so good, and honestly I just don’t crave carbs right now. However, I need to get them back in my life if I want to complete this marathon. They are sooooo necessary because they are the fastest source of energy for your muscles when you’re running. When my legs run out of carbs, they start eating muscle!! NO GOOD! I like my muscle!
Anyway, I knew that I needed to skip my 9 miler Wednesday if I wanted to kick this 18 miler’s butt tomorrow morning. But I kept waffling. Should I skip? Maybe I should just try? Well thanks to Lindsay’s 5 days of rest I realized missing ONE training run isn’t going to kill me. So Wednesday morning I said goodbye to my running shoes, put on some shoes I can’t run in and headed to the gym for upper body weights.
It was SO HARD!!! I Loooooove to run, but I’m also an incredibly stubborn person and I like to stick to my plan. My plan said to run 9 miles and gosh darn it I wanted to complete that, I wanted to complete my mileage for the week! But I had to just get over myself and not run.
Am I glad I did it? Oh yes.
I felt sooooo much better by Thursday morning, so I headed to the gym to do my 5 miles, thinking I’d do minimum 5 (if it wasn’t to tiring) and max 8. Guess how many I did???
EIGHT! And they were awesome. And now I am ready to ROCK this 18 miler tomorrow (don’t think I’m superwoman – I’m also SCARED of this 18 miler tomorrow!). Only a couple months ago I considered it a great week of running if I hit 18 as my WEEKLY mileage. Not all at once! Ahhhhhh!
So wish me luck! Wish my legs luck! And a prayer or two might help as well! Oh, and wish Molly luck too because she’ll be running it alone! (and I don’t mean dog Molly
Do you have an activity that you just hate to skip even if it’s the best thing for you?
What’s something you did this week that you are proud of?