Friday, October 28, 2011

Recovery and Racing

I haven't checked in for a while, so I figured it would be a great opportunity for an update.

For the record, I am VERY good at post-race gluttony. The first week - I logged NADA. Sunday I ran an easy 3 with John and Monday I ran my "practice 5K' with my GOTR girls. Which, incidentally was very motivating. This of course lead me to the other thing I am very good at post race: getting WAY fired up for more races.

As I mentioned to you a while back, I had a PLAN C in the works given Chicago's predicted (and subsequently actual) high temps. Because the race tends to sell out, I signed up. Indeed, it sold out and this week I started to think about the fact that I had a marathon entry in hand for this weekend's Haunted Hustle Marathon.

Now, I would never think of running a marathon just 2 weeks after I just finished one. But when I realized I could switch to the half for free and that the weather looked ideal (at least as of Tuesday), the thought of RACING not only popped into my head but started excitedly racing through me. Hey, this is a great course, I am in great shape, great weather, I could qualify for NYCM before the standards change! YEAH!

But then all my kind friends at KR reminded me how very stupid this was.

Yes, it is. Damn.

But why waste a perfectly good race entry?! I am still kicking around the idea of running a half next weekend, so I would run at least 10 this weekend anyway. So tomorrow, I am going to run the Haunted Hustle Half Marathon as a training run. This WILL be challenging for me not to take off. I have never run a race easy (unless I was running with/for someone else). But I won't push it (too hard). I am saving it for next weekend. And I am really looking forward to it.

Oh, and I owe you all some pics from Grand Rapids - I know. They weren't awful, but they certainly weren't fabulous. Kind of like my race.

Happy weekend.

3 comments:

Runnin-From-The-Law said...

I'm good at the post race laziness too! :-) Train hard, recover hard.

Kristy from Run The Long Road tried to race Philly HM just 2 weeks after LVM and she ended up having to take 2 weeks off and something still isn't right with her leg. Be smart so you can kick Wisconsin Marathon's butt in the spring!

Love that you are so involved with GOTR. You are a great role model!

Jen Jones said...

Going into the 1/2 without any pressure should lead to a fun race! I've done a couple of halves likes that when recovering from a full/getting back into shape and they were a blast!

Good luck and have fun!

Mindi said...

It was SO much fun!!!!