Rest Day

Whaaat? That's right. No better way to start off a recovery week than with an entire rest day! Awesome. I was feeling pretty beat down after the last four weeks and the twinges of perhaps the cold that my son has so I thought the best plan was to just hold off everything for today. Sometimes, the best improvement comes from rest. It does amaze me that although tired yesterday during my quick four mile jaunt that I was able to go pretty fast given the low HR I ran at. Much of the time I was in the lower 140s and was at an 8:30-8:45 on the up hill and 7:30ish on the downhill part of the run. Funny how that works and I remember that happening last year. The day after some hard efforts my heart rate was lower than ever. Either way, my last recovery week four weeks ago, I was noticeably stronger and faster the following week. For the remainder of this week, I will maintain intensity but just reduce my total volume to roughly 7-9 hours from the typical 15 hour per week baseline. Tomorrow I will either run or hop on the spinners for an hour. Either will be a lower effort. A couple of runs at this week will be at higher efforts than my base building in attempt to build some final speed for the Marathon in 11 days. Probably some tempo efforts at LT, maybe some excels where every 15 for 45 seconds I kick it up a notch and then take a rest min, maybe progression run. Don't know if I have enough time but it will be unorganized speed training. Its not worth injury so just whatever the body can handle. This will hopefully finalize my leg speed enough for Salida. The RD dropped an email today and said they have a good amount of snow on the course still (up to knee deep in sections) and muddy on the front side. It's gonna be an adventure and that is why I am doing it. I love adventure! See you later while I enjoy the remainder of my rest day.