This past Monday I logged into my RunCoach account to find this waiting for me:
My RunCoach speed workouts for the most part are usually pretty simple, x number of x00 meters @ x:xx pace with x:xx jogs, or sometimes two of those with 30-40 minutes at marathon pace sandwiched in between. In any case, pretty easy to glance at, quickly commit to memory, & execute without too much thought. We don't tend to do "ladders" or "pyramids" other fanciness very often, so this one threw me off a bit.
Friends, I love running fast. Over the last couple of years I've also learned to love leisurely long runs and chunks of slow, easy base training, but letting loose for some heart-pounding intervals on the track or a comfortably-hard-but-not-TOO-hard tempo run is still my favorite part of training for a goal race. In fact, this is how I knew I needed a break back in February/March--when I'd see those workouts on my plan and feel dread, and wiping the training schedule clean felt like such a relief. And that's how I've known I'm ready to get back to work--starting to feel a bit bored with slow, easy jogging, and excited about scary-sounding paces.
Don't get me wrong, though; those first few post-base training workouts are never easy, and this week was no exception.
It was a short one since we didn't get back from Hawai'i until early Wednesday morning. Like most runners, at this point I know what all my funny little biomechanical things are, all the places that are injury prone if I don't tend to them with stretching and rolling and strength work (and let's be honest, I really have not been as of late). For some reason I still have this idea in my head that if I take a few days off or take a break from running due to vacation or recovery from a big race or whatever, all those things will heal up and I'll feel fresh and healthy and ready to run when I go back to it.
Except it's completely not true. Almost without exception, my cranky feet and gimpy right hip and curmudgeonly SI joints ALWAYS feel worse after a vacation or a week of post-race rest. It's actually getting back into running (and weirdly, running longer or faster or both) that settles them down (as long as I'm doing the work to take care of them).
