I don’t know how many of you out there have seen those New Balance shoe commercials about running. They talk about running like romantic relationship full of passion and pain. They show things like a guy who tried to broke up with running but now he misses it and a guy who can’t break it off with running because he heard running has a hot new friend named “Victory.”
This week I really got the joke of those commercials, and the joke is on me. I discovered that once I started training regularly it has become a steamy affair and I can’t put it down even if I try.
Like this last weekend, for instance. I was forced to slow down because I woke up Friday morning with a nasty sinus infection. The first day doing nothing I could deal with. By Saturday afternoon I was getting that itch. I went swimming in the ocean just to get my blood flowing.
By Sunday I was going stir crazy and went up to Jupiter, swam up and down the shore and biked up into Martin County. I could only go half speed because my entire head felt like concrete, but just moving muted my restlessness.
It wasn’t until Tuesday that I was able to feel decent enough to really train again, and I really shouldn’t be pushing it at all because I have a triathlon in two weeks. But I was climbing the walls. I learned that once you start running the road just keeps calling to you and she is very convincing.
Pulling back on the throttle has almost become the toughest part of training. When I don’t run or lift I feel like I haven’t gotten anything out of my day. Then the endless hours trapped in the maddening gridlock and concrete jungle that is the modern American city starts to aggravate me. Getting outside and sweating is like an escape from that jungle.
The truth is there really such a thing as over-training. At my first triathlon clinic the coach told the crowd that there is not much we can do to improve our time the last two weeks before a race but there is a lot we can do to mess it up by overtraining.
The concept she was talking about it called “tapering.” In the two weeks before a triathlon or marathon experts say you should gradually cut back on weight training and things like long strenuous runs, doing enough to stay loose and letting your muscles rebuild and recharge.
I understand the benefit of tapering in my head. But then the weather gets nice, I get of being stuck in the concrete jungle and that road, she just talks to me. All I could think about Sunday was that I wanted to get out again and go harder, go faster, just a little bit more.
Fighting my own urge to exercise more during these two weeks will be the toughest mental battle for me. I’m sure all of you out face the same struggle whenever your body forces you to slow it down, and I’d love to hear how you have dealt with it.