I finished with week eight of training. Usually by this time in my schedule there have been some minor issues or injuries, causing me to pause training for a week. So far everything is going very well. I have to be careful to not tell myself that, since things are going so well, I can step it up beyond my scheduled training. Pushing myself is when I end up getting injured. I think it is helping that I haven't registered for any local races during the training. When I run a local race, I sometimes feel I have a reputation to keep up (I often place or win in my gender/age group) and I push myself too much.
That being said, I have done two things I said I wouldn't in that first paragraph. I signed up for a 5K in early August. It's close but technically not local, it's a women's only race, and it raises money for a good cause. It will be late enough in my training that I think I'll be trained enough and disciplined enough to avoid injuries. I'm scheduled for pace training the day before, so I'll adjust and make the race part of that training.
Also, I added a run this week. Because I switched and did my long run on Saturday, I had an extra day. Monday was a holiday, so I met up with one of my friends and we ran. Originally we discussed the idea of running the local July 4th race, but decided to just go for a fun run. That was a good decision. We had fun, saw some local wildlife, and didn't push ourselves like we do when we race.
I adjusted my long run schedule again this week. One of my friends is visiting her family (she lives out of state), and had a scheduled long run for Saturday. I decided to again switch to Saturday so I could run with her. And a funny thing happened on Friday - I was out for a short "shake out" run (scheduled, not extra), and ran into her. So we ended up running together two days. It's a great way to catch up on whats going on.
As far as cross training, I missed one session. I'll simply repeat last week and get it in. As I've said, flexibility in a training schedule is key for me. We had out of state family in town, and we had a last minute dinner invitation. That was more important than one session of weight training. The week was so busy that there was no other time to fit it in.
In the past, I would obsess about having to get in that training, possibly causing myself injury by not allowing myself enough recovery time from running. Now I've learned to relax and realize that the only way any training program will work for me is if I allow enough flexibility to actually live my life too. Running is a regular part of my life, not just when I'm training for a marathon, and I want to keep it that way. A few years ago I got pretty burned out and didn't enjoy running. I won't let that happen again.
No Excuses / Gotta run
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