Rest Week

After pushing myself really hard for 3 weeks I'm taking a much deserved rest week. I often find the rest week really tough. Tough in that I wrestle with my thoughts throughout the week. I've always been taught to work hard toward your goals and quitters never win and winners never quit. I have to constantly remind myself that cutting back the km in my workouts is not "wimping out", that I HAVE to take these breaks for the purpose of resting my body so that it can train even harder in following weeks.

I also find myself chomping at the bit to start the next week of training. (with tougher longer work outs.) The one thing that really forces me to stay on track with my rest weeks are the fear of injury. You don't have to search for long in the endurance training communities to find someone sidelined because their over training has led to injury. I promised myself when I began this journey that I would take my time. It didn't matter if it took me 2 years of training before I felt read y to do a Triathlon. I feel that I've chosen a lifestyle that I want to follow long term. Rushing myself to enter a race before I'm ready could very well make it not enjoyable making. I guess I just feel that I'd rather be over ready than under.

Speaking of injury I am noticing my shoulder acting up a little bit. I think when I'm pushing hard during my intervals I must be doing something slightly off causing some impingement. I'm very careful with my stretching. I also have been noticing some complaints in my left knee. I'm not exactly sure what it is. It's actually more in the back of the knee or lower hamstring so again I've been carefully stretching which seems to have helped. And I think part of the problem may have been that it was time to buy knew runners. I really should have replaced them earlier. So I treated myself last week to a new pair of Nikes. I always love the feeling of a new pair of runners. If the nagging twinge persists I will need to get it looked at. I hate that you know you should but you don't want anyone telling you that you need to take several weeks off training. Yet in ignoring it you could be doing further damage making recovery even longer. So I think my recovery week is well timed.