Recovery and taking time off

My last race in the Chilly Cheeks race series was my hardest—mentally. I knew I could show up, ride 10 miles and run 4 miles. The problem was, I get so competitive. So the real question was, could I show up and not stress myself out by trying to bike so hard and run so fast?

Well I was lucky on the ride. It was freezing. I really had nothing else to think about for 10 miles other than, “Turn your legs over.” Although around mile 9, I did realize, “I will not be able to feel my feet when I start running…”

The run was my salvation. My last 5k I ran in under 8 minute miles. However, I also felt “slightly injured” for the following 3 weeks. So I decided to take it easy and not play mental games with who was passing me, and trying to keep up with so and so.

Having my iShuffle helped. After about a mile into the run, when I actually could feel my feet, The Killers' song, All these things I’ve done erupted into my ear. I messed with the homophones of the lyrics. The original lyrics are:

When there's nowhere else to run

Is there room for one more sun

One more sun

If you can hold on

If you can hold on, hold on

Mentally, I replaced “sun” with “son.” Given the fact I have two sons, and everyone in my family has sons, I viewed it as a good time to observe why I was running, and why it was a blessing/responsibility that I was NOT pregnant again. I do not want to have more children, but sometimes I think it is an excuse to take it easy on my body if I were pregnant, therefore I asked myself, “When there’s nowhere else to run, Is there room for one more son?”

I looked around at the blue sky and felt the beautiful intenseness of biking and running and picked up the pace, deciding I was happier to be running than not running.

Shortly after this random thought, Ellen Hart passed me. She is over 50 and took 3rd place in the Hawaii Ironman World Championships in her age group. I tried to yell go, “….” but her name escaped me at the time.

After the race I talked to Ellen, and she said she was just getting back into the swing of things after over-training. I immediately understood, and asked her if she over-trained after Ironman? She said yes. I thought on the way home about how hard we push our bodies as women/people, and the fear of losing what we have accomplished.

I am taking two months off. From what? Who knows. I will still ride my bike to campus, and everywhere else. I’ll still go to yoga 3 – 4 times a week. I’ll still probably run at least once a week, not to “completely lose it.” Maybe I am just taking a month off from mentally recording what I do, but does that mean I actually do less…or maybe more?