Do you want to recover or do you want to beat yourself down and have a crappy half marathon (today)?
That was the question I battled with myself for about an hour on Wednesday morning.
The answer was I would rather take an extra day off and have a better half marathon. Believe me, it was extremely hard mentally to add another rest day. I am “marathon training” now. I must work hardr then ever before. I kept questioning whether I would be able to even get to 20 mile long runs when a 15 wiped me out.
Sometimes working harder before means taking a step back and realizing you need to recover before you will move forward.
So this week had two nonrunning days instead of one. I honestly have no regrets because my legs drastically improved the day I took a rest day (go figure).
| Monday: | Medford Lakes 5k (19:24) | Total miles 11 |
| Tuesday: | 11.55 | Nike training club core crunch |
| Wednesday: | Rest | |
| Thursday: | 12.5 (7:16 pace) | |
| Friday: | Rest | |
| Saturday: | 10.8 easy with Tim | |
| Sunday: | Run for the Dream half marathon |
Tuesday was one of the hardest runs I’ve done in a while. I was both physically and mentally tired. Looking back, my body was exhausted. Between being exhausted and the humidity, the run was miserable. That is why I took Wednesday off.Looking back I have absolutely no regrets taking Wednesday off. My legs improved and felt so much the next day.
Thursday was my added longer tempo run. The first few miles I was a little bit stiff (I’m not surprised after taking a rest day) but my body slowly got into a nice groove. All in all, it felt good and it was extremely similar to last weeks tempo. Friday was my planned rest day and Saturday I ran easy with Tim.
That leads us to today. Today I run my last half marathon until the fall, The Run for the Dream half marathon in Williamsburg. Last year I ran a 1:29 so I would like to be around that again. The course itself is hilly and the weather will be hot and humid. I would be happy with breaking 1:30 again.
I am happy with this week of training, I would have liked slightly higher mileage but it didn’t happen.
Plans for next week:
I would like to recover well from the half marathon and continue from there. There is a huge 8k that my work helps with (if you live near Moorestown, NJ you should do the Scott Coffee Rotary 8k). Realistically I see myself needing to take tomorrow off from running but we will see. I would like to break 70 miles weekly again since that was my goal for the first month of training.
Other then that staying injury free and trying to build my base are the main goals.
Finally, don’t forget to enter my Erin Condren giveaway so we can plan things together.
Questions for you:
What was your best workout of the week?
I think it’s important to get your rest! Running a marathon is a lot of miles and it’s GOOD TO REST! I think I already saw your time for the 1/2 when I woke up this morning (a minute faster?) so congratulations! That’s awesome! My best workout of the week was cleaning my house. Can I count that until I go back to the gym? I sweat a lot Swiffering all our wood floors.
Glad you felt better after some rest. I did the same this week and am feeling refreshed today!
Best workout. Unexpected hill run on Tuesday. Love those runs. Wondered how my route got so hilly and my pace so fast (for me). I was spent after and it felt great. My legs felt it all week though. Call me crazy, but I love hills!
Good for you for listening to your body. It is hard to take things on a daily basis when you have a long term goal in mind. Congrats on an awesome race! And I’m glad to hear you did not run in your shorts #runderwearforlife
I ran the boulderBOULDER 10K on Monday which was very hilly and then yesterday also did a hilly run at pace. ugh. Hills are the name of the game for the summer to get me ready for a hilly half in July and Ragnar in August.
I want to do some serious hills. I get nice hills in PA and Charlottesville, VA…but not in south jersey.
My best workout this week was my leg workout. OMG I am still feeling it.
None of my workouts this week were running. Thanks a lot, injury. But I’ll say my best workout was probably Wednesday’s BodyPump. I just did upper body with weights, but i lifted heavy, and I did body weight on squats and lunges. My arms were definitely feeling it the next day, but the lifting is helping them. I’m glad I can still do that.
Sounds like you had a great half, I can’t wait to read about it. Marathon training is tough to juggle with races, I mean you want to do well in the half but your long term goal is still Wineglass (fortunately it’s early in the training). I’m glad you took the extra day off, looks like it worked out well for ya!
I think you speak for EVERY SINGLE RUNNER when you say that adding an extra rest day is hard, not matter what our fitness level. I love rest days, I think that they matter and am fine to my rest day each week.
I also know and take advantage of when I can just tell that I need an additional rest day in a week. It is almost always the right decision, but I that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard or that I don’t sometimes struggle with it as much as I hate to admit it.
I feel ya on the humidity! I KNOW that in the Summer, my running suffers. Even though I grew up in Florida, I do not run well in the heat, and have to remember that when I feel like crap.
My best workout this week (mentally) was actually yoga. I did plenty of muscle searing runs/spinning/bootcamps, but was more present in the studio. And yay for rest days!!!! I once went a month without a single rest day and was left totally wiped out – I def don’t plan on doing that again 🙂
Sorry to hear that Hollie. I had a heck of a lot of those these last few weeks. I have decided I have had enough and I am going to take a week off to allow my body to recover. Hopefully you feel better this week. It is not too late to take a few days off friend, I wrote about why I am in my blog, if you wanted to give it a read 🙂
I think that it’s so normal to feel down and need that extra day. I love how smart of a runner you are that you don’t allow yourself to get further beaten down. Running is hard enough on the body without the mental aspect added in!
You are so smart to take that extra rest day- and congrats on an awesome half (from what I saw on Instagram!) I was thinking I’m done with races for the rest of this pregnancy but I might have to look into the 8k… that probably isn’t too far from me!
I agree that you made the right choice by taking an extra rest day. 🙂 I have been discovering the importance of rest in my training lately. I often underestimate it!
I know how much you love this phrase, but it was a good call “listening to your body.” 😉