Moving is considered to be one of the most stressful things a person can go through. It ranks right up there with death and divorce – and for good reason. When I went to bed Monday night I had a panic attack thinking of all the things left to do before the movers arrived on Wednesday morning.
This should have been a rest week after 10 weeks of base building, but this relocation did not take into account my running schedule . The only work I intended to do during my week of rest was an hour or so each morning of tai chi…… nothing strenuous.
Instead, I woke up at 5am and worked until 10pm loading boxes, putting bubble wrap on everything, cleaning the garage, sliding Christmas decorations down the little ladder from the attic, posting things on Craig’s List with a warning that it must be picked up by Wednesday afternoon – taking inventory of everything in the house so I can make a judgment on what to keep and what to separate myself from. There has been nothing leisurely about relocation week.
I can’t help but think back to the midway point of base building when I decided I would inventory the 10 week session at the end and make the same decisions. Would I continue to run slow? Will I keep doing the Core Strengthening exercises I’ve learned? How about those dreadful tiger presses?
Completing this base building session has been one of the most important things I’ve done for my training overall. Learning the discipline of running long slow miles has helped me develop different “gears”, which I have read we are supposed to possess.
Once in a while I have let myself fall into a steady, fast pace just to quench that need for speed. But when you know where the slow gear is you can readily find it again. Then its much easier and more fun to run the correct pace for the job at hand.
Now I’m ready to move back into marathon training having learned a few new things, eliminated some old, bad habits while retaining the good things from years of hard, focused training – much like my relocation.
The beautiful, familiar things in this house have traveled all over the country, to Ecuador and back, up and down the stairs of this house. We’ve gotten rid of a few things, picked up new things along the way, and we treasure things from our years of collecting.
And thus goes life and running.
Even though this has hardly been a week of rest, it has been a week of renewal nonetheless.
The Fartlek 