So training-wise, it was a pretty frustrating Christmas. I began break at home by taking a few days off to rest my knee. After traveling to the Annual Meeting, my tight hamstrings and high mileage weeks added up cause some irritation of my pes anserine tendon on the lower inside of my knee. It wasn’t bad enough to stop me from working out (with the aid of anti-inflams and regular icing) but it made me cross train the days in between and wouldn’t go away. Even with soft tissue treatment and none weight bearing secondary training sessions, it would have good days and bad days. One of my first years at Penn State I remember one of my Coaches telling me that you will never perform at your very best unless your whole body is well. If there is any part of you that is tight or irritated or ‘off’ your energy (some call it Chi) will not flow smoothly and it will limit you from reaching your potential. I always think about this and strive to always feel like my ‘flow’ is unhindered. Despite believing in this theory, it was still hard to convince myself that complete rest was ok if thats the only way I could correct the problem, especially since I could kind of run through it. I gave myself until Christmas break to feel 100% and if I didn’t by then, I would allow myself a few days to rest completely. So I finished the last hill repeat without too much trouble but it just wasn’t good enough. It was nice to have the distractions of home to keep me from feeling horribly useless but allowing my body to ‘come down’ like that made me realize that my knee probably wasn’t the only thing that needed the rest. I don’t know if it was being home and out of my routine in Oregon or what but I took the level of my motivation as a sign that I may have pushed training a bit too hard in the fall. Mom was even able to continue some soft tissue work and I still had trouble convincing myself that I was rested and better.
The second week started off slow but I was getting some good work in when I came home one night after dinner with friends to a crippling stomach flu. I tossed and turned and pucked the first night and slept through the entire day and following night. I can’t remember EVER sleeping that much! This sidelined me a few more days and butted me right up to the travel back to Oregon. I try to see the positives in the break, though inconsistency is my biggest training pet peeve. The weather in Ohio was very runnable the whole break, when I did run, I got some good work in, I was home, with family, I ate good, and I feel like my body got a chance to really ‘reset’ itself. I am ready to begin this next training cycle into the Final Stretch. I am glad I had a fall like this- I pushed harder than I was ready but it was a lot closer to where I am at than all of last year. I am healthy again. I am motivated. I am smarter. I am READY. Bring on 2012.
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