I had a huge confidence-boosting workout last week. On Wednesday I ran a 5K PR and it was my second run of the day! I've been trying to add mileage without interrupting our family's schedule, which means on Wednesday's running twice: once in the morning and then again at track in the evening. Even with an easy four miler already in the books I went into Wednesday's track workout feeling great. I arrived ready to run hard around the track, but a lacrosse game forced my running club off the track and onto the road. Luckily there is a certified 5K course that conveniently starts and finishes at the track, so the coach instructed us to run the 5K course by running two minutes hard and two minutes easy until we finished back where we started. After our usual mile warm up we toed the start line and I started my watch and set out, two minutes comfortably hard, then I jogged for two minutes. I didn't know what my pace was since I was only wearing my watch (not my Garmin) and I wasn't trying to do the math in my head either. I was just running and glancing down every two minutes for my cue to go or to jog. When stopped my watch at the finish line I couldn't believe it: 21:04 a 5K PR.

That night it took me forever to fall asleep. There's something about running in the evening and running a PR that had me all jacked up on endorphins. The new PR is a good sign that I'm making improvements (it is a whole minute and 21 seconds faster than my April 6th 5k of 22:25). I was also feeling hopeful and excited for a 5K that I planned to run on Saturday. It would give me a chance to see if I could PR again, but this time without the recovery jogs. But on Saturday morning I woke up feeling sick. I've been fighting what I thought was seasonal allergies for the past two weeks: a general feeling of fatigue, irritated nose and sinuses. I felt off, but not sick enough to not run. But on Saturday morning I did not feel good and then Sunday felt no better. So I didn't run the 5K and then I didn't run on Sunday or Monday. Add in Friday's rest day, it was four days off from running.

Whenever I take time off running, I worry that I lose fitness. And so over the past few days the doubt has set in: doubt about the PR that I ran (maybe it was a fluke?) and fear that I'd lose the fitness that allowed me to run that fast PR if it wasn't a fluke. Those pesky voices of doubt are no good. They are the same ones that appear during my taper, the voices that say "you're not ready" or "you can't." So on Sunday night I found a great article that helped silence these doubts and let me rest yesterday. Accompanying the article was a chart that shows the rate at which you lose fitness when you're not running.

It was nice to be reassured that four days would result in "negligible" loss of fitness.

I headed out for a run this morning and although the pace was decent I didn't feel great. I don't feel sick any more, but I don't quite feel 100%. I think one of the hardest thing for runners is to rest when we know it is the best thing to do.

Do you every worry about taking days off when you're training for a race? How do you deal with those voices of doubt?

-Sarah

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A 5K PR and Doubt

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