By Chamberlain Zulauf, Student Reporter
I started week 7 of the training program with my first day off of the summer. I did have miles which needed to be run and I got all the way to the track before making a final decision; sometimes mileage is the most intimidating when you’re about to take your first step. In moments like that it can seem like your miles are all laid out in front of yourself, both endless and staring you in the face all at once. All things considered, I will be fine for missing a day, and will try to make it up throughout the week. If I don’t then I don’t. It’s better to have given my body the rest it was asking for.
For the most part I’ve been eating up these last few weeks of loaded mileage. There is a mental stride/rhythm I try to stay in where waking up in the morning and running double digit miles doesn’t totally deflate me. I’ve been doing good to keep up with my lifting and core as well yet still, it’s incredibly easy to falter in while practicing.
A runner’s schedule is a very delicate thing and can easily be thrown off. The day before my self-prescribed mini-vacation was a 13-mile-long run. Usually, I get my runs in the morning but on Sunday I didn’t get around to running until around 7.
Changing up the running time affected my rhythm badly and is what made running the next morning much more daunting. The point of running at the same time every day is to get a full days’ worth of recovery in between runs. Deviating and doing my long run at 7 cut my recovery by more than half. So, the next day, I’m standing on Roanoke’s track at seven in the morning, mentally battling with myself to take the first step on an 11-mile run.
My thought process didn’t go much farther than ‘I really don’t want to do this today’. For the first time in 7 weeks my heart was not in it. I came to terms with that, accepted the setback then stepped off the track and went back to bed. My mind and body were asking for a day off and I was willing to oblige because I know I still have the rest of summer to run through.
