How To Not Not Run

Monday 9th February

Run #40

2k Trying to Keep it Slow

After yesterday's long run and the plan to run home from work tomorrow I knew I needed to keep tonight as light as possible. Outside of The Streak I'd call it a rest day and not think anything more of it. Hell, a justified rest day was one of my favourite aspects of being a runner.

But one if the biggest challenges, I'm realising, of running every day is not actually the running, but the not not running: trying to plan how to fit in longer runs, harder runs or faster runs without the days off in between. To see if there is a way between all the research and conventional wisdom that dictates is necessary and needed by your body to recover sufficiently to not get broken on the bigger efforts.

I have headed out for 'short' runs in the last few weeks but, feeling good, once out a few k has become 5 or 6. Which may not sound like much but for me to be back-to-backing 5ks daily is considerable when 25k a week was my usual (and not frequent) max pre-Streak.

But as the days are going on I am realising that, if I never get a rest day, I really need to get as close to a rest day as possible while running, if I'm not going to get an overuse injury. I'm sure there are a lot of people that could run daily with no issue at all. But back when I stopped running a decade ago it was shin splits that put me off. So, once bitten, I am running scared of running too much. To counter this I'm trying to remember to stretch religiously after every run and build in some recovery running.

So tonight I was determined to keep to the minimum 2k, and keep the pace slow enough that I could breathe solely through my nose. I managed it, but it's amazing how difficult it is to slow down. Especially when it's chilly out! I consciously reminded myself the entire way that ‘this is not a run: it's a recovery disguised as a run’ and it needs to be short enough and slow enough to be as good as a rest. And so it was.