I Raced Again After A Month Off

A few months ago I stood on the side of the road a mile and a half into a 5k time trial and stopped. I wasn't hurt. I just didn't have anything left, physically or mentally, and I knew it before I laced up.

I'd been dreading runs I normally look forward to for weeks before that. Sleep was bad. Work was heavy. Training was heavy on top of it. My coach and I looked at the whole picture and decided the month needed to be an off season instead of another buildup.

Off season didn't mean stopping. Two easy runs a week, under 10 miles total. The rest of my training time went to lifting, some cycling, a little core work I'd been skipping for months.

I raced a 5k again last week, my first one back. I went in expecting to feel like I was starting over. I ran a minute slower than my last one.

A minute is a real difference in a 5k. I felt it in the last mile. But a whole month of barely running should have cost me more than that, and it didn't. My continued consistency combined with a focus on recovery gave me so much more than it took.

Here's what it actually cost me. The knee ache that had been nagging at me for weeks isn't fully gone, but it's mostly gone. I stopped dreading my easy runs. I want to run again, which hadn't been true in a while. And with less time going toward training, I had more of it for my daughter, and more patience left by the end of most days.

I'd rather be a minute slower and want to run than fast than dreading it every time I lace up. Life and training have seasons.

-Eliana