The downside of goals

So far this year, having specific goals has gone a long way towards keeping me active. I’ve made it through the worst of the winter (fingers crossed) in good shape. But, as I attempt to begin a taper, I’m hitting a mental road block. I had the official goal of working out 5 days a week and an unofficial goal of hitting 20 miles a week. So far, I’ve done really well with both.

BUT, I need to give my body a break. I know I’ll run a stronger half marathon if I take it easier next week and take two full days off before the race. One of the things I’ve definitely learned is that my body needs rest. Full on, do nothing but walking, rest. And I’ll do it, but there definitely will be some guilty feelings involved (even though my logical mind knows why I’m doing it). I haven’t used a training plan for this half (just tried to include intervals, tempos, and long runs), but I think I might need to take a look at the taper of some plans.

I’m still a bit sore today. Who knew that walking slowly on packed snow while pulling a sled would be the hardest.calf.workout.ever. I could barely walk down the stairs this morning! Despite that, I did go for about a three mile walk this morning and a three and a half mile run this afternoon. Apparently all the speedy runs are paying off. My legs felt tired, but otherwise I felt great and I managed the 3.5 in 31:41 (9:21, 8:54, 8:37). Amazingly, I wasn’t really pushing at all and was nowhere near my lactate threshold. Woot!

(And a quick note to Glaven, I’ve made my blog stop insisting that you link to it. That’s your gift this week. I’ll talk about beer more later, including mention of a planned tour of a brewery the day before the half marathon.)