#8 - Listen To Your Body

After a hard workout Wednesday morning and an easy recovery effort Wednesday evening, I was feeling fairly wiped yesterday. Between a busy day of family and work activity I took an unscheduled but needed off day Thursday. I was very tired Thursday night and not super motivated to crank out a run when I woke up this morning. I prepped my gear last night before bed, slept hard for a good eight hours, but woke up still feeling stiff and unmotivated. Instead of hitting my morning run (the first of two I had planned for today), I woke up, fired up some coffee, did some stretching and voodoo flossing (see Starrett's Ready to Run for details on the floss) and then took some time to relax and catch up on some reading until my kids woke up.

As my day rolls on, instead of the heavy legs and flagging motivation I'd probably be experiencing all day, I'm feeling rested, and my motivation to crush the hill workout I've got planned for this evening has returned.

What's the point of this rant? Sometimes it's easy to get carried away by the idea of motivation, and that somehow if you don't get up and get after it everyday even if it feels like hell, you're a lazy sloth. I think that motivation is a good barometer. I know I'm motivated to do what it takes to complete my first hundred this fall; it's practically all I think about, sunup to sundown. So when my motivation flags, it's not that I'm lazy or slacking, it's usually a sign that I need to back off a bit and let my training sink in. When my body's ready to roll again, it usually gives me plenty of signs, like a giant craving to go out and get some wind in my hair while I hit the trails.

Training - Hill repeats at the local ski run, 10x up and down.