Easy Weeks

It was supposed to be an easy week for running.  40 minutes runs on Tuesday and Thursday, 10k on Saturday.  Rest and heal those muscles in preparation of the next three weeks of hard running.

Easy week indeed.  Between the craziness at work, and fighting a battle with the cold gods, I had not run one step in 8 days.  This morning, despite my body whining that it was still 'so tired', I pulled on my well rested running shoes and headed out.  The only goal was to move.  I hoped for an hour, I dreamed about 10k, but really, I just didn't want to have to hail a cab.

It's amazing how a week off doesn't really help the legs much.  An easy week is great because those easy runs feel - well easy.  Not running at all just gives the legs time to forget that they ever knew how to run.  They fought back, I pushed on, we argued...a lot.  I agreed to two quick stretch breaks if they agreed to run for 45 minutes.  A compromise was reached and together we ran 7k.

Today was less about exercise and was more of an exercise in psychology.  Tuesday's run is supposed to be 13k and I knew that, if I didn't run before then, I would not be able to pull it off.  Reminding my body that it has work to do, and how to do it, means that Tuesday's run should be fine.  And, if not, today's run gave me a chance to practice my negotiation skills for the next time my legs put up a fuss.