Set your priorities, don't let them set you

I've barely run all week, but not out of fatigue or laziness or the doldrums (sp?) of winter. Last Saturday I wrecked my calves in a 6 hour relay. I ran about 20 miles in spikes over slush. I've been recovering ever since. Full details here.

Ostensibly I am training for Penn Relays, and if that is the case, then running this race was a bad idea. But when I dig a little deeper and examine my priorities I realize that there could be no better race than the Cast a Shadow Snowshoe Relay. It was a unique experience and a unique challenge. Plus I learned things about my body that I might never have learned without being temperaturely challenged as I was in this race.

I will still run Penn and I may or may not break the 30 min mark which is my goal and would be a PR, but I've got to let go of the nagging guilt that comes from not running. Cast a Shadow is something I wouldn't go back and undo even if I could. It took me back to the essence of racing. Now is the time for patience and recovery.

Though today may be my first successful run all week, I've hardly been idle in the mean time. I find that low recovery circuits are great alternatives to running even if you have no gym membership or exercise equipment in your house. I don't even have freeweights right now. Nonetheless, I do crunches, side crunches, pushups, supermans, dips off the couch, squat lunges, step back lunges with a twist, and then repeat. Every other cycle I do pillar instead of crunches. It's a great sequence. I did about a half our of this while watching BBC World News on Friday.

Have fun out there.