Sick and quick

I am a huge proponent of the concept of listening to your body. If your body says don’t do something you probably shouldn’t. This goes against the nike logic of “just do it” and listening to your body has the potential to keep one from doing what they should and want to do. Our bodies and minds should be the best indicator of whether or not we should or can do something. Our bodies and minds should know better about most things than any doctor, real or googled. If only we’d just listen.

So today I woke up from a crumby night’s sleep after an evening when I overate late with the feeling of a cold’s onset squeezing my head like a dog’s squeaky toy. I hadn’t run yesterday and I didn’t want to start falling into the pattern that I have been of late of missing several days, then weeks, then… in a row. So against my better judgement, with my body saying don’t run and head throbbing from sinus pressure, I geared up and walked out the door to hit the streets. How does this jive with my emphasis on listening to my body? Doesn’t. At all. Obviously the decision to run was a blatant slap in the face of my exercise/health philosophy. But my desire to run had won out. Valid mind and body arguments to take it easy be damned! So I decided to embrace the fool-hardy nature of pushing my body and just go with it. What the hell, a slow sloggy run would at least amount to something good. If I took it easy on my run, then maybe the destruction I would wrought wouldn’t be so bad. I had some good arguments in mind as I took those first initial steps along my route.

The first thing I should say is that it was a beautiful day out. The kind of day that has no place in the Pacific NW in early March. The kind of day that we and the region will be paying for this summer when the droughts hit from no winter rain/snow. But for the moment (and aren’t we all supposed to live in the moment? Who cares if it rocks right now?) So embracing the now and ignoring the future I relished the warmth and soon stripped off my jacket after the first mile or so. My pace at the start of the run felt ok. Nothing great but it certainly didn’t feel “sloggy” (whatever that is?) I took a peak at my watch and it said I was clipping along at 9:15 pace! WTF? I am supposed to feel crappy. Why am I moving so well? I thought it was an anomaly, perhaps brought on by the slight downward slope into East Moreland. Then my first mile past and I got notice from the watch that I had done it at 9:36. Huh? Second mile came through even quicker as I was now embracing my quickness rather than a potential bonk, 9:18. Damn, I was cooking, so I just kept it up. Third mile – 9:18 again. Consistency seemed to now be the word of the day. Great, but my fourth mile was coming up, a normally slower paced portion of my normal route due to some twists and turns, exhaustion and unaware students at reed. All I had to do was keep it up until the hill out of the reed campus and up to Woodstock. I had decided that would walk that as I have been prone to do of late. I hit the hill portion with a few tenths to go before I hit a mile marker to check my pace and what did I see?

9:24.

Killer.

After the walk up the hill I just had to crush the final mile. The first portion of it was up hill and the watch said I was on track for an 11 minute mile. While I would certainly come in under 10 (first time in awhile) I really wanted better, so I pushed it. It didn’t take long before my avg pace dipped below 10, then below 9:30. And as I made my way through Woodstock Park and the fifth mile clocked I was at 9:14. Wow. The last quarter mile back to the house dropped me even further overall as I managed a 8:21 pace (didn’t seem like I was trying that hard, I just mostly wanted to get home). Overall for the day, a 2015 PR on 10k(ish) of 48:18 with an avg pace of 9:20.

All I have to say is that today my mind and body listened to me instead of the other way around. I had no idea I was speaking so loudly.

Recovery, not recovery

Today’s run was weird. Seven miles of junk. Blew past my recovery ceiling and stayed in the high 150s for the majority of my run. I tried a couple of times to bring it down, but 150 or so was about the lowest I could bring myself despite running really slowly – 11:30 pace.

So I have to wonder where this is coming form, two runs last week were like this as well. Is it over training? I don’t think so as even though I have been pushing it on most of my quality runs I have had several 3 or 4 day breaks recently. I don’t have an injury but I have been feeling it in my hamstrings and glutes. Using a foam roller has really helped there. My feet have been bothering me, but I don’t think it is getting in the way of running to any effect.

I will have to think on this more.

Oh, the pool. After running this morning I added on a good workout for the arms and shoulder. Empty a pool with three buckets. The third bucket is used to fill the pair. Then I lift up one full bucket and use it to balance myself while I lift the second. Then I empty them around the yard. Great workout.