Remorse of the restful

I regret to report that the cake was destroyed before I got a chance to document it!  Not to worry, because with family friends visiting who share an interest in food, we will surely have something tasty whipped up by tonight.  I hope to have some pictures and/or recipes up soon!  Meanwhile, it was another Sunday of rest/.  I feel so unfulfilled on rest days.  Lately I've even had feelings of guilt while running.  This is what I contemplated as I stretched my tight muscles today.  These feelings of guilt and yearning for my regular run were not out of character but nevertheless I was surprised.

It's been rather odd.  On easy runs I feel that I should be pushing myself harder or doing a workout.  However, I know this isn't the case.  Easy runs and recovery days are one of the most crucial parts of training.  Muscles that have been broken need to be repaired, so repeatedly punishing them with no recovery time is detrimental to improvement.  I even recently read an article advocating two rest days between two days of hard running.  

Though we all know the importance of rest (or, at least, we should) my competitive drive often gets the best of me.  I find myself pushing the pace on easy runs just for the feeling of speed and the satisfaction that comes afterwards.  The contentment of having worked muscles is addictive, but it's a dangerous drug.  I read another article about how we workout to race, not race our workouts.  Often on my teams we have issues with this, including, as I've mentioned, my own tendencies.  Especially in hard workouts it is counterproductive to push yourself to race people you know are faster in the hopes of boosting your pride.  Sticking with your own personal pacing is a much better bet; internalizing a pace and effort level can help with even splits, helping the body stay strong throughout the whole race.  Workouts are about time, while racing is about competition.  Too often we act like it's the reverse.  

Therefore I have a challenge.  In this upcoming week, I myself (and anyone reading, if you;d like) will focus on completing each workout for its intended purpose.  I'll report back to see how it's affected the psychology of my runs.  It seems like an opportunity to liberate myself from the stress of hard workouts and the remorse of easy runs.  Because running is a mental sport and training the mind is as important as training the body.  Happy running!