Finding the love.

I had a wonderful walk in the wind at dawn this morning and along with it a chance to have a chat with myself. It was time to reevaluate and rediscover why I train. I had the talk and came away with the answers. I train because I enjoy it. But I don't enjoy pushing the pace and going hard all the time. Training hard has to be something you are ready to do not something you should force yourself to do.

I had a relaxed 4 miles this morning and felt wonderful. I didn't try to force the pace but even more important I didn't give myself a guilt trip for not pushing it. I had rediscovered that it wasn't the training to win races that I loved but the training to live and be in motion, a part of nature.

Training to do your best in a race has it's place but first you have to find the joy in just training for pleasure. Then when you feel it's time and your body is ready you can turn up the heat. I make the mistake about once a year usually about this time of pending spring weather, I start training with guilt as my motivation instead of just wanting to enjoy the effort.

When I start feeling soreness all the time that doesn't go away with a few good nights sleep and a day off then I'm probably pushing to hard. I especially notice it in my quads when I do a squat type motion to do something. If getting up form a squat is difficult because I'm sore it's time to back off. Being sore all the time doesn't mean you're improving it means your over doing.

When I realize what's going on a rest day and a week of cutting back the effort will take care of it. Sometimes a couple of rest days are called for. Switching to another activity, cross training, is good but it's not a substitute for rest.

Knowing your body is a good idea since your stuck with it. Learn to recognise what it's telling you. If your hot or cold that's easy to pick up on but if your slowly wearing it down that's harder for most of us to catch. We always think more is better even when we know better.

Thanks for reading.

Resting Panda