When You Read Your Training Schedule Backward...

I didn't run a single step the other weekend; not a one.

I tentatively planned a brief 30-minute jaunt (or two) on Saturday, as well as Sunday. But as my old coach used to say, 'one excuse is as good as any other if you don't want to do something.'

I wanted to do something, but my heart wasn't in it. I was more worried about how my father was doing. So I spent more time chewing at my brains and reacting to every chime of my cell phone until I had the chance to speak to him on Sunday afternoon...

Me: "So, how are you doing?"

Him: "Well, I'm alive."

And, as my hasher friends would say, "...there was much rejoicing."

I've kvetched and moaned in the past about consistency in training, the benefits of rest, and stuff like that. Quite frankly, I don't think there's an incongruity between getting out (or, on the treadmill in my case) when your schedule says so, and plugging in a day off, especially when you've got a lot things on your mind.

Many of my friends love running as a form of stress release. As long as you don't carry your cell phone with you, a good run is a sure-fire way to place some distance between you and the things which are eating at you. Sometimes when it's all said and done you've got the problem all sorted out, or your plan of action drafted, or the thing you intend to say rehearsed. But there are moments when the overabundance of things on your mind are going to do nothing but screw up your run.

And if you're a tightly-wound guy like I am that "rotten run" then ends up being another thing driving you insane. I guess that's the double-edged sword, that "holism of training" thing which Timothy Noakes talks about in his "Laws of Training. How many times do we find that when we're running well our lives are a joy to behold? I mean, we're feeling (relatively) lean, (relatively) fast and invincible; our workouts are falling into place, our race performances are where we think they should be, all is right with the world? Those are the good days. And we can have the exact flip side of the coin where we can't finish a weekend long run without feeling gimpy and dragging our tail between our legs, and all we want to do is find a country album and a record player so we can play it backwards and...

You do know what happens when you play a country song backwards, right?

My wife loves to use her little frustrations as a reason to go out and run. Running with anger? I'm not so certain that adrenaline and cortisol and all those other hormones make for the most optimal run fuel source. Perhaps sprinters can get away with that sort of junk, but it's a recipe for disaster for us distance-loving guys & gals.

Naturally, Suzanne is not your typical distance runner.

It's okay to take a day unscheduled. You might feel a little bit of guilt, but I don't know of too many people who have died (directly) from feeling guilty. And if you're running for the right reasons you shouldn't feel guilt in the first place

Oh, and when I (finally) hit the gym on Tuesday, even the tendons and fascia had a good time.