It had been so long since I'd run 20 miles, I'd forgotten what it felt like the day after. :) I woke up this morning feeling fine sleep-wise, but my legs were just toast. It was all I could do to move them without physically using my hands to do so. :)
So, with that in mind, I believe that I exercised a little wisdom today. Old Jill would probably have pushed through a run no matter how hard it hurt. New, wiser Jill broke up today's recovery workout by doing 30 minutes on the elliptical, 2.3 easy miles on the treadmill, and 10 more minutes on the elliptical. I just kept thinking about the hard speed workout that I have tomorrow and thought, "Man, it will be so worth it to have fresh legs tomorrow."
During yesterday's 2:45-hour workout, Jackie gave me some great advice. She's an amazing runner with great wisdom and experience, so when she talks about training, I listen! She was telling me about the body's need to repair itself after a hard workout and our need to allow it that time. It brought a TON of light to the training I'd been doing and the amount of injury that I'd been racking up. I was never taking it easy. Ever! Except for my full days off. My body was just contantly being broken down. What I need to do is bust it all-out on the hard workout days and then really take it easy on the recovery days.
So, with that in mind, I'm probably going to add in one day of cross-training to my plan and take out one recovery run. Like today. I will run the rest of the week, but it was good to give my body a chance to catch up after yesterday. I'll likely listen to it and put these into practice more often. Then, on days like tomorrow and Thursday, I'll be fresh and ready to ROCK on the speed workouts and tempo runs, which I LOVE anyway.
Okay, friends, I better get myself going to work.
Prayer requests:
-For the body to recover physically from the long run.
-For healing from plantar fascitis in my right foot.
-For Military Ministry and for their financial and spiritual needs to be met so that they can meet the needs of our troops.
-For our troops and military families to be blessed and strengthened by the Lord.
Ciao!
-Jill
Jackie is in good company. From Ryan Hall: "Make the hard runs hard and the recovery runs easy, says Hall. Many runners make the mistake of running too hard on their easy days, which is counter-productive. You'll only tire yourself for the quality days that really matter." http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-393-396--12467-0,00.html
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