Life of a Runner: Rest
Hi friends! Here is my blog for the week. It is not nearly as exciting as last week, but I hope you can find it entertaining enough.
Monday
OFF
I felt completely dead today. Everything still hurt from my huge day on Sunday and I was not ready to go out and do anything yet.
Tuesday
2.10 miles, 17:15 (8:14/mile)
This morning I dragged myself out of bed and went for a run. My mom went with me, and saying she’d go only if we go slow. Then I struggled to keep up. My legs hurt badly, especially my hips. It was perhaps the longest two miles of my life. Who knew running 20 miles would take so much out of you?
As for this week, I don’t really have a plan. I just want to get out every day and do at least something. I talked to my mom a bit about how she and my dad recovered after running marathons, and they just took it easy and slowly got back into running, so I think I’ll do something similar.
Wednesday
Morning: 2 miles, 16:49 (8:14/mile)
It was the same pace as yesterday but felt a lot better. I ran with Mum again out on the highway. We chose to go west, which was kind of a mistake because there was a ton of traffic. She rolled her ankle at one point trying to get over on the shoulder. But we woke up and got it done.
Afternoon: 3 miles, 23:57 (7:59/mile)
I went by myself around town. My legs still don’t feel quite normal. They feel sluggish and heavy. My parents were working on putting up our fence outside, so I went on my own. It cooled off a ton this afternoon as storms rolled through the surrounding area.
Thursday
3 miles, 24:26 (8:09/mile)
Mum, Dad, and I went up to the Garrison trail this morning and ran. It was my first time being back on the trail since Sunday, and I had a fair dosage of flashbacks. That half a mile stretch between the half-mile and mile mark seemed to take so much longer than usual. I hope eventually it will go back to normal. It was pretty humid and kind of hot. I ran almost even splits: 8:11, 8:11, and 8:04. I tried really hard to make the last mile another 8:11, but I thought I was behind pace and misjudged it.
Friday
3 miles, 23:30 (7:50/mile)
I ran on the treadmill. I didn’t get up early enough to make it out before it got hot. I felt fine, except my music wouldn’t work for a while so I got angry and ran faster. At least I got it done. On bad days, that’s all I can say. I got it done, and I have a few more miles in the book.
Saturday
2 miles, 15:47 (7:54/mile)
I did a quick run around Brett’s place, as I was staying there for the weekend. I was just full of great ideas today, too, like running at the hottest part of the day while dehydrated. So I cut it short and only did 2 instead of 3 like I planned. I felt pretty good, though. It may have been the best I felt all week. It was nice to get out and do some light running.
Sunday
OFF
It was really nice this week to just rest and recover, and not take things too seriously. One of my biggest downfalls is putting too much pressure on myself, and I certainly don’t need that after such a big week. This was a remarkably low-mileage week for me. I think it is what I needed, but this coming week I will be working on getting back into it and upping my mileage again. I reached my goal of getting back above the magical number 40 last week, so now I want to build back up to that (without doing any more 20 mile runs for a while, I think).
I read in a book once that courage was knowing when to take it easy, or at least something along those lines, so that’s how I would describe my week. It wasn’t the most exciting thing, but it was nice.
Thanks for reading!
— Morgan
