Amy Reinink

I’m pretty decent about taking one full day off per week, understanding that the rest lets my muscles get the full benefits of all the hard training I did the week before.

Know what I’m not so good about? Step-back weeks, the entire weeks where you step back in mileage and intensity after two hard weeks of training, are components of basically every marathon-training program known to man. Problem is, I’m not following a training plan right now, since my stubbornly sore IT band has forced me to put my Marine Corps Marathon training on hold for the moment. This means I’ve basically been plowing through my training willy-nilly, often beating the crap out of myself for no reason, with very little rest after.

Case in point: On Sunday, I did two hours of lifting and core work, telling myself doing a 5-minute plank on the BOSU was the equivalent of the 14-mile run I was missing. This followed a week of hard running and swimming, and I’d planned to follow it up with — yep, a week of hard running and swimming.

Then, my body rebelled with a nascent cold. I’m not sick yet, but my body’s considering whether to give in to the aches and congestion that have stopped in for a visit. For once, I’m being smart, and am chilling out this week to prep for the Crystal City Twilighter 5K on Saturday night. I’m considering it a sort of forced taper, or a nasty reminder that my unofficial “training plan” should include some step-back weeks, too.

How do you incorporate rest into your training? Share your strategies by posting a comment below.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post about how hard it is to stop a body in motion, when that body is yours and it is injured and your doctor has warned you to give that body a break. Today, I got a sign from the running gods that really, it’s time to chill out for a day or two.

Last night, my body got hit with a weird, flu-ish haze that left me achy and exhausted, with a tiny bit of head congestion, like my body’s deciding whether it really wants to be sick. This left me deciding whether I wanted to attempt my group run with Pacers Silver Spring tonight.

I followed what David Nieman, Ph.D., who heads the Human Performance Laboratory at Appalachian State University and has run 58 marathons and ultras, calls the “neck rule:” Symptoms below the neck — a chest cough, or body aches — require time off. Symptoms above the neck — a runny nose, stuffiness, sneezing — and you’re good to go.

Given that the body-aches and exhaustion are nothing if not neck-down, I opted to play it safe and stay home. Still, I was totally jealous as I watched Steve get dressed to meet our running group, even though I felt too tired and achy to even contemplate getting up to refill my Nalgene with water.

Steve answered the “am I too sick to run” question for me by reminding me that we’re planning to run the Crystal City Twilighter 5K on Saturday night. “Don’t sacrifice Saturday for a run you won’t get anything out of tonight,” he said.

He’s smart, that guy. He knew that the real question was: Is it smart for me to run tonight? The answer to that one was an unequivocal “no.”

In case there was any doubt, I reverted to a rule my mom had for me in high school: If I was too sick to go to school, I was too sick to go to swim practice after school. I actually laid down for a nap today, which are usually physically impossible for me, during what I consider my working hours. Too sick for school, too sick for practice.

Wondering whether you’re too sick to run? Get more insights from Nieman in this great Runner’s World piece on the topic. For more insights from my mom, I’m not sure what to tell you.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to pop some more echinacea and Tylenol Sinus.

I’d really been doing OK not training for the Marine Corps Marathon yet.

I’ve been sticking to 5 or 6-milers three times a week, as discussed with my running doc, and had been doing just fine without long runs and speedwork, which he explicitly outlawed until at least August. The hip’s been doing … you know. Fine. Not great, but fine.

Then, last weekend,  some friends who are running MCM mentioned to my husband, who in turn mentioned to me, that they were running 14 miles on Sunday. This is fabulous for them, but I felt left out and crappy and gimpy and lazy, despite starting my Saturday with a truly lovely 5- or 6-mile trail run and about an hour of core and hip work after.

I know the only solution is to get over myself, and to get my head back in the right place. By the way, I think it’s awesomely ironic that I’m feeling down after a week of focused mind games.

Here’s the difficulty with the mantras I’ve developed: They all encourage pushing, not restraint, which I think is considerably harder. A body in motion stays in motion, and it’s tough to stop the body once it gets going — even if that body happens to be yours, and happens to be hurt.

So I focused on the one mantra that did fit: Choose health. Know what’s healthy? Running. Know what’s not healthy? Completing one’s running route in a fast limp, then lurching back to the doctor with a worse injury than what I started with. I kept that in mind as I did nearly two hours of leg lifts, BOSU work, balance work and other dreaded physical-therapy exercises yesterday. It didn’t make the plank position any less boring, but it did keep me focused on why I was there.

Next up: This swim workout later today:

1,000 warmup, 100 free, 50 stroke

Pyramid set, freestyle, on :15 rest, moderate pace that you can maintain (goal is to hold your pace the whole time): > 1×50 > 1×100 > 1×150 > 1×200 > 1×250 > 1×300 > 1×250 > 1×200 > 1×150 > 1×100 > 1×50 (1,800 total)

4×25 sprint your choice on :45

4×25 no-breath freestyle, as much rest as you need (if you’ve got good lung capacity and breath control, you shouldn’t need more than 20 to 30 seconds)

My weeklong adventures in mind games took a distinct turn for the difficult

The newest addition to my motivation board: Salazar, who swam to overcome his own IT band injury.

this morning, when I started thinking about how I didn’t want to swim today almost as soon as I got up.

I decided to follow a tip from Greg Dale, director of sports psychology and leadership programs for Duke Athletics, who I talked to earlier this week (for more of his tips, click here).  Dale says athletes often obsess about races and workouts, and says it’s best to develop a plan for how they’ll deal with difficult spots in an event, then put the plan — and thoughts about the race — aside until a chosen time close to the event.

So here’s my plan:

I will swim 3,000 yards  in the following workout: 3X 800 free w/pull buoy; first one easy, second one harder, third one w/seven hard strokes at the beginning of each 50.

After each 800, do a 200 IM; first one hard, second one easier, third one cool-down.

We’ll swim around 4 p.m. I will probably feel tired, and will want to obsess about this. If that’s the case, I’ll tell myself how good it will feel when I’m done, and how the swim will provide the perfect bridge between the work week and the weekend. But I’m not gonna think about that til 3:30 p.m. No use obsessing, right?

Helping my motivation: Knowing I’m swimming with my husband today. I worry about what might happen on this Friday without him around to keep me honest …

Also, I added a photo of Alberto Salazar to my motivation board, pictured above. Salazar apparently qualified for the Olympic team in 1980 after a two-month hiatus from running, relying on swimming as his primary activity following an IT band injury. His scowling (in this photo) face reminds me that if he can swim to keep his IT band healthy, I can, too.

Thanks to my recent realization that I can choose my thoughts, I’ve been a

Some mind games made for a great 6-miler through Rock Creek Park this morning!

bit obsessed with how this superpower can affect my running performance.

Last week, I posted some tips from my interview with sports psychologist Alison Arnold, founder of Head Games Sports, who has coached Olympic athletes and who was kind enough to let me pick her brain for a story I’m working on. This week, for the same story, I got to talk to Greg Dale, director of sports psychology and leadership programs for Duke Athletics, who has coached Shalane Flanagan. Let the mind games continue …

1. Dale, like Arnold, says runners should be aware of sneaky performance-zapping thoughts, and tells runners to keep a journal tracking their thoughts before, during and after workouts to learn how their thought patterns affect their performance.

I tried this myself before my trail run on a longer version of my beloved Rock Creek Park loop this morning, which turned out to be the source of some really whiny negativity starting last night. I was annoyed that my freaky iPod left me music-less, and that an evening assignment in Rockville would keep me from running with my Pacers running group tonight. “I can’t run fast without my iPod” and “I won’t run as quickly on my own” popped into my consciousness like jack-in-the-boxes.

I replaced them with these thoughts: I ran without an iPod for years — and in fact, I don’t run with one at Pacers. Sure, I’d rather run with one, but it will be good practice for me to leave it at home, as I can focus on the beauty of the trails and my pace.

Then, once I got on the road, I kept feeling guilty about taking time away from working. This is a repeat offender for me — as a freelancer who makes my own schedule, I often feel guilty for any time off, for any reason, especially to do  something that’s just for me. To combat this thought, I tried repeating: “I deserve this.” Cause I DO.

2. Dale says once you figure out which thoughts fuel your best performance, you  should plan to use them during difficult parts of races or workouts. I got a head-start on this last week, when I tried to combat feelings of being a big, spazzy, injury-prone idiot on the trails by telling myself I’m strong and confident, and that I’m an awesome outdoor diva who grew up running trails without injury or incident. Felt cheesy last week, slightly less so this week.

I also read a few of my own trail-running tips before I left, and looked at the motivation board I made at Arnold’s suggestion. Finally, I reminded myself that my hip may not feel super-duper, but that I’m running with my doctor’s OK, and that I’m a stronger runner than I was before physical therapy. I even sang Kanye West’s “Stronger” to myself to feed this thought.

3. Finally, Dale says it’s important to keep your focus on the factors you can control: on following your race plan (or workout plan) and channeling the positive thoughts that work for you rather than your competition or finish time. He tells runners to develop a plan, then set it aside to avoid pre-race anxiety. So until it was time to run, I put running thoughts aside until shortly before I left.

Guess what? This all worked like a charm! I discovered that for me, focusing on just a few simple, positive thoughts really helped keep my brain from going to the dark side, a la Miles in Sideways. I relied on these key phrases during the tough parts of the 6-mile trail run:

Stonger.

Amazing trail diva. I guess this would be me referring to myself? Dunno. It popped into my head mid-run, and it got me pumped.

Choose focus. Or, choose peace. I even tried to choose health. Something about the “choose” reminded me I could, in fact, choose what I was thinking about, which is kind of the whole point.

I deserve this. Running’s my reward, not a punishment — it’s time I start treating it that way!