Rest Day

Today is a rest day.

Ever since I started running marathons I've believed in rest days because my body made it very clear they were important: my knees or hips would ache, I would have trouble waking up, my legs would feel heavy. This morning I felt all of the above.

I am beginning to understand, too, how mixing up your training can help you. Last night was another speed workout and instead of just running around the track in circles all evening, we hit the football field for some drills. This wasn't our first time doing drills - we did some stride work at the end of the session last week. But Coach P likes to keep us on our toes, sometimes literally, so we started the session with a couple of new drills. I don't know what you would call them, so I'll try to describe them instead. The first set was like skipping - in fact it WAS skipping - only you had to get your knees as high as possible as you went. When Coach T gave us an example, we all laughed (mostly because he added this absurd arm thing with it - like he was flapping his arms - but also because it looks kind of silly as it is). After several times across the football field we weren't laughing anymore. Then we had to run but try to kick our butts as we went. By the time we finished those my legs were like lead. At least we had some fun along the way.

Our speed training group is a very small group of regulars and we're starting to feel comfortable around each other and joke and make the workouts fun. Last night was all about our porn names and the like. J, a fellow I've mentioned before in here, ended up with the name Butter Hancock and I thought I was going to pee my pants I was laughing so hard. Well, things just got sillier from there and J started singing 80's music that fit the drill . . . you can only imagine how hard it is to run drills while giggling.

Then we got to do our speed workout - lots of running around in circles. I actually found it EASIER this time! I'm taking that as a good sign.

I was also able to shake up the workout by running mostly with Coach T. He's a NUT - and is really good at pushing me. We ran out to the track together and he made me join him in running around the track until the others had arrived. When he ran the sprints with me, he stayed right with me but made sure I never let up my pace and picked it up at the end. When we ran back to the Amtrak station (our meeting place for all workouts), I again ran with him and he had me run a little hill here or there along the way. I felt tired, but really good when we finished.

And today I REST, thank heavens!

Well, rest is a relative term of course and Zoe took me for a marathon walk this morning. I think ultimately that was good though, get those sore muscles moving again.

Tomorrow is a cut back day - we're only running eight miles and if the weather is anything like today, it will be perfect running weather - cloudy and cool.

And Sunday will be another rest day. If only I actually had a hammock.