Rebooting

Bleeeeeeep, bloooooop, dee doo dee doo, de, deeeeee, deeeeesssshhhhhh...

I took a somewhat radical approach last week and simply didn't run at all. I couldn't trust my senses anymore and wanted to reset the whole system once. As if my mission control center lost the key person that analyzes the data from the damage surveillance division.

Two months ago I changed my training approach and running a lot. I was in a state of constant recovery and lost the ability to know how things are supposed to feel like. What's "pleasantly tired"? Was my fatigue normal, was the soreness normal? I ran into completely new territory and just couldn't tell a niggle from a looming injury anymore because everything was quite sensational to me.

Sitting out one week may sound drastic but I needed to rebase my system in order to relearn how 100% recovered feels.

I allowed some other things to take over the driver's seat in the meantime to keep my mind off running, such as wedding planning for example.

Now everything is back to zero and I am confident again that I am not running myself into the ground. But I'll be more careful and aware from now on. I start where I left off, try not to overachieve, allow myself more freedom and give myself less pressure on rainy days.

I will continue with the plan but also have a plan B ready. If I feel stale in two weeks again, I have to warm up to the idea that I just don't have enough stamina for the stamina build-up. The build-up starts with roughly 80k/week and that's actually a lot for someone who's not a high-mileage runner like me. In that case I'll put the build-up on ice and first run 4-6 weeks only miles, no matter how fast or slow.

Week 2 (again), Day 1: 11.4k @ 4:06/k (7.1 Mi @ 6:35/Mi)