Move It Old Man - Keep Rest & Recovery Holy - 21 Weeks To Go
I paying for it.
I am paying for three straight nights of crappy sleep. I am paying for not taking recovery, right after my long run, seriously enough. I am paying for working in an insanely hot garage, after being depleted by back-to-back run days. I am paying for traveling while exhausted.
This weekend. My body was overcooked. No amount of water quenched my thirst. It felt like nothing could refill the deficit. Now I’m recovering from not recovering.
If hindsight is 20/20, what lessons can I take forward? What are the blazes that tell me I’m on the path to exhaustion / overtraining?
Sleep
I didn’t really have any say in this. My wife had a late night out and interrupted my sleep (night before my long run) with her late arrival followed her restless post-party sleep. The next night my daughter was out until midnight, the night after my long run. The next night I was in such a deficit that my body felt feverish. The downward spiral had built its own momentum. Lesson, if sleep consistently sucks maybe don’t do the long run, maybe take the day off or adjust your schedule. Who cares if you skip it, don’t be owned by your training schedule, listen to how your body and mind feel.
Recovery
I ended up hanging out with a friend after my long run, instead of giving myself time to deeply rest. I didn’t eat enough, I didn’t drink enough in the pivotal time right after my run. Of all the accumulative effects, this one I feel the most acutely. Poor sleep + not prioritizing recovery compounded my troubles. Lesson: Remember to rest & recover and keep that holy.
Obligations
My in-laws just moved and we were planning to help them unpack and organize their new home. After my back to back runs, poor sleep, and poor recovery, I got on a train with my daughter upstate. I arrived underfed and dehydrated to a house that had little-to-no food and full of moving-day emotional stress. My father-in-law asked me to build a rack for his gardening tools in the garage. I could feel the grip on my mind slip as I drilled and hammered. The sun at its solstice peak turned the stale-dusty-garage air into a kiln. I, body and mind, evaporated. Lesson, if you know hard work of family obligations is in store, maybe don’t front load hard training.
Three Strikes, I’m Out
Poor Sleep + Poor Recovery + Manual Labor In A Sauna = An exhaustion I have never known. I have been playing with the edge of adaptation and now I know what it feels like to cross the line. I do my best to take every step and strain into account, this time I failed to see how quickly things got out of control. With hindsight, it’s easy to see how my pattern of training horse-blinded me to the total stress load of life. I didn’t stick out my finger to test the wind, I didn’t take my temperature. I plugged ahead like a machine and now I’m paying for it like a human. Now I will rest, I have no choice.
Total Miles this week: 65.5
Long Run On Poor Sleep
