Declared Rest Day

Ok - I declare today a rest day. Not because it's a Saturday, but I'm surprised at how sore I am.  My quads, hamstrings, and even calves are at it with a whining fest.

Taking notes on the track 

And you know what's surprising? It wasn't caused all by running. No, it was caused by - and I'm going to say the "G" word - because I've been avoiding it like the plague - the Gym. Recently - well more like the last 6 months,  I'd gotten carried away with just running, and neglected things like strength training, drills, and cross training. It's easy to get carried away with just you, your running buddies, and a pair of shoes. (I'll never forget that agonizing 10-mile loop last spring! And many thanks to Rod to pacing with me from mile 3ish onward. I started out too fast trying to keep up with Mike and then lost him about 2 miles in.)

So yesterday, I temporarily parted from my running shoes and reintroduced myself to my longtime gym. A famous athlete and personal trainer (I'm forgetting his name) said choose a gym that's close to you, because you'll go. So true. The gym I committed to is about 25-30 minutes away. My logic is, why sit that long when you can squeeze in a 5K? See? I can hardly sit still, and most of my friends will strongly agree.

So when I realised my mile time (9:30 min/mile) slowed by almost one minute off my PR pacing splits in a half-marathon -- I was, to say the least, disgusted. I also had the guts to finally admit to myself that I hadn't seen a treadmill, or a leg press machine, or heavy free weights, or heck even showed up for a group exercise class -- since August 2016. Eight months ago. In September-October, I completed 4 races in back to back weekends (10K, 5K, 13.1M, and 10M) and felt fine - in fact, I set a PR for the 10 miler.

Then, the holidays settled in and I settled in as well. Big time. Found myself sitting...mostly sitting...in restaurants catching up with people I hadn't seen in a while, because you know runners and our schedules - "Sorry, 8 pm is too late, I have to be up at 3 am for a race" type of excuse. But it felt nice to sit, and next thing you know, one dessert leads to the next, and your excuse for eating macarons is that you're still eating a "variety" of colours:
 

This is still healthy, right? Because it is a rainbow of colours.

But -- during all this, I still ran for fun, despite doing zero races in December, and made sure I saw my 20 minutes of outdoors and kept up enough to run a couple 5Ks in January and still finish sub-30 - barely. Know that your fitness can slip away from you and you not even know it...if you fail to test it! I saw my times gaining by 30...50...even 60 seconds. I chalked it up to lack of sleep, or running less than usual, and the late night burger (I'm sure we've all been there.) After all, I had been running throughout December! Mini milers!

So when I realized I was blasting through 5K races and feeling winded at times close to 30 minutes (and my PR is 27:11 on a true 3.1 mile course), I thought, weird.

Back to the gym. Time to get some strength back, I admitted. Time to show up again to see if they have any new equipment since I was last there. Or if they moved anything. Since it was quite a drive, I committed to staying 1 hour. That is a huge commitment for me. One hour exercising that's not purely running? Anyway, I decided to do a circuit type of training, alternating drills, weights, and jogging/running (couldn't resist the last part). Suffice to say about 20 minutes in, I wanted to be done. I was breathing louder than the music that was blaring. But I stuck it out for the entire time, also wondering how I used to do this every week in a group class setting.

And now, today. Definitely feeling it. The foam roller is my friend. So it turmeric and avocados and other anti-inflammatory foods. And what a good time to sit and blog, too.