Dumbest Goals Ever

Butch, Megan, and I were waiting for the awards after the Changing Leaves 10k Saturday morning. I was telling Butch about my hamstring issues. I explained that I had been struggling with it for about 6 weeks now. Butch offered up some really good advice. Why not cut back my mileage to 30 or 40 miles per week. His advice was meant in the best possible intentions. Yes, I am sure cutting back my mileage further would certainly help with my hamstring recovery.

However, good advice has to be weighed against my goals.

My goals included running both OBX and Disney marathons. But it also included another dumb goal - running 4000 miles this year. This latter goal has me dragging myself far longer than I really should be.

But this also takes me back to another piece of advice that I got long ago. Thinking about this advice now, makes me think how dumb that advice really is.

This precious piece of advice was "if something hurts, keeping running on it. If it really is a problem, the hurt will become bad enough that it stops me from running".

What can I say, I have lived by this advice ever since. And this has contributed to slower recovery times and probably slower race times.

Writing about dumbest goals slowing recovery times, it makes me wish that I hadn't ever started this running ever day goal.

Is taking a day off really going to affect my performance that much?

This just goes to show that the Cool Down Runner is a man of contradictions.

 

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner