I did the right thing

This past Saturday, I skipped a scheduled long hard workout in favor of easy mileage because I was sick with a cold, and I lamented a lot about whether or not that was the right thing to do (see Saturday's notes in this post).  It was a hard call because I wasn't that ill, but was feeling puny enough that I worried that a hard run could make me quite sick.  On Sunday and Monday, I began feeling much better and now I am pretty much completely recovered from my cold.  I still ran 18 miles on Saturday, split 15 and 3, but it was slower than usual and I felt weak.

Today I had 22 miles on tap, and wow what a difference a few days made!  I felt SO much stronger today than on Saturday's run, and I really had to hold back to not speed up early on.  You can see on my splits some early miles, like mile 9, that made me say "oops!" when I saw my split.  I did 18 relaxed then 4 miles at marathon goal pace (the final mile was closer to half pace, though).  And it felt amazing!  Missy ran miles 2-8 with me, then Casey ran 8-13 and about 15.5-16.5 then 18-19 with me (it's complicated!). 

Feeling sub-par for a bit really made me appreciate feeling good more, and I know that I did the right thing with skipping the workout when I felt puny because a) I probably wouldn't have hit my paces anyway, and then I would have been discouraged, and b) I would have delayed my recovery from being sick and not had this run today, and c) I would have risked the illness going into my lungs and really jeopardized my goal races.  The tempo workout was rescheduled for September 11, so I get to run it then!

Today was also a work day mileage PR, although I did go into work an hour and a half late (flex time is a beautiful thing!).  I could have made it just one hour late, but it was nice to have time to foam roll, take an ice bath, and eat before leaving!

What did you start at 4:59 this morning?

Splits