Well, today we broke the streak of awesomesauce workouts. Quite understandably, my leg-os were pretty annoyed with me this morning when I woke up. Especially since my recovery consisted of this last night:
Yum-o. No regrets at all, but I probably could have used a side of stretching with that. Instead I ate a pound of cherries. Hey, when Momma gives your fruit, you take it. The hubster and I went out to Webster last night to help Mom TFB sell her car, and we all walked away winners. We found a buyer, the hubster got a strawberry shortcake lollipop and a root beer, and I got this:
That woman is amazing. Seriously. Also, I realize that it’s probably really
So…back to today. After 104 miles on ‘em yesterday, my leggies basically told me to go fudge myself on my long run today. Like a genius, I slept in and headed out to do my 14 miler in the noontime heat, which was 91 today, complete with sun (as I type this now, it’s cloudy and 85. Argh. I convinced myself this was good "acclimatization" for Musselman though.). I looped the run, so it was broken up into 5 mile segments. The first 5 miles were rough as hell, but I kept a decent pace. Took a few walk breaks, because my legs felt like lead. At mile 5, I splashed on some H2O and headed out for loop 2, and that’s when things got strange. My leg felt twingy (I have IT issues), I stopped to walk every 5 minutes or so, and I just couldn’t find my groove. As I headed up the last hill to my starting point at about mile 9, I started to get some serious knee pain.
I made it to mile 10, grabbed my water, and played the “should I cut it short or HTFU and keep going” game.
I’m not good at that game. As most of you know, I am a ridiculous type A athlete and if 14 miles is written in the plan, 14 miles is what I am doing. I like challenge. I like pushing my body. And I always bring it back down to the fact that if it was race day, would I quit? HELL NO. I’ve had enough races where I’ve blacked out in the water, crashed my bike, twisted my ankle, etc and just kept going. Not with the best time ever, certainly not a PR, but “quit” is not in my vocabulary. And while that really helps out with mental toughness during a longer race, sometimes that
Type A may help during a race, but it also has led to injury for me in the past, from a psoas issue while Ironman training, to piriformis during marathon training. Yep, I rehabbed both, but if I had been a bit smarter during the training, I might not have had the issues to begin with.
So as I sat there (well stood there) debating, the little type A devil on my right shoulder said “Rae, you need to suck it up and finish your workout. Don’t be a wuss." And the little dude on my left shoulder said “Rae, you have a half ironman next weekend. You KNOW you can run 14 miles no problem. What are you proving? THIS is not quality. It’s quantity. And you nailed all your workouts this week. Listen to your body”.
So I did. And even though I still have some niggling guilt about it, I know I did the right thing. 4 less miles won’t make a darn bit of difference next weekend, but 4 more miles might have. And not in a good way.
Let’s look at the good. 10 miles. 1:32:xx. 91 degrees. I think that makes me a bada$$, not a wimp. And that’s what I’m going with
Now it’s onto the good stuff:
Grilled cheese, sun tea, fresh veggies and fruit, and Greek yogurt. Yum-o. Lunch of champions. Happy Sunday, folks!
OMG does that last picture look GREAT!!! And the fruit... what an amazing mom! Good for you calling it at 10 mi. It's so hard to do when you are disciplined the way you are. I don't know too many people with your drive and desire to meet goals that they set the way you do. Sounds like this was absolutely the best choice in this case. I looked up the Musselman... Looks like a fantastic Half Iron event! Good luck to you Rae!! And wow.. do you eat good!! Keep it up!!
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