A little rest.
This entry was posted on 4/15/2011 1:04 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
Yesterday I took the day off. I felt really tired all day and just couldn't shake the fatigue, plus I had some tenderness in my ankle that needs a chance to go away.
So I've been looking over my training and have decided that I need some rest time. Even though when I laid out the current cycle of training it made perfect sense on paper, sometimes that doesn't make sense on the road. It's always a fine line between maximum gains in fitness and falling over the edge into injury, but I've learned that it's better to pull back and re-evaluate the goals than to push on and be out of the game.
The equation is fairly simple, but it's permutations can be really complex.
(x)(intensity) + (y)(miles) + (z)(recovery) = maximum fitness
The trick is to find the right balance in the variables, if any one of them is slightly off, you're in trouble. I think this cycle has not had enough rest built in. In my head I was thinking that because the mileage has been so much lower than in marathon training that I wouldn't need so much recovery. But I forgot to factor in the increased intensity of the workouts I've been doing. Marathon training is so much more about the volume, whereas now I'm focused more on the quality/intensity. All of this added up is putting too much stress on my legs and not allowing enough time for healing and recovery. (Plus, I am 3 years older than I was when I last went through a similar training cycle
So for the rest of this week and all of next week I'm just going to focus on logging some easy miles. Maybe I'll throw in some strides or fartlek if I'm feeling good, but I want to make sure that I have time to absorb all the hard stuff I've been doing.
Today I just did an easy 5, no watch, just getting the miles in.
