This post isn\u2019t about stretching in the traditional sense, it\u2019s about extending workout distances. Couldn’t resist a bit of word play.
This past Saturday I ran eighteen miles though my plan was sixteen. Things changed because at mile twelve I was feeling good and figured I could stretch it out to twenty. After juggling various extensions beyond sixteen in my mind for few minutes, I settled on eighteen. Could I have gone twenty? Yes. Two things held me back. I didn\u2019t want to deviate too far off the plan and create a greater risk of injury that day or the ones that followed. The risk was low but my mileage was already on the higher end for the week. Also, there\u2019s feeling thrashed after a long run (which I did) and there\u2019s running to a point beyond that. Doing the latter would not have prevented me from lacing up the shoes the next day or embarking on another long run, but I chose to feel solid about already extending a distance run, as opposed to having gone beyond reasonable training boundaries.
There is supposed to be some pain when training for any race distance and you won\u2019t be feeling joyful and inspired after every run. But, driving yourself to extreme pain on every workout can be counterproductive.
How do you judge when to keep to the prescribed distance or workout versus when to stretch it out? Part of it for me is feel. If things are going well, maybe I add on just a bit to a distance run. Or, if I’m doing a speed workout such as five 800s and I’m nailing my splits while feeling good, I might set a slightly faster time goal for the final one or two of those. (I would approach adding on splits, especially longer ones, with great caution.)
If I\u2019m feeling good, I don\u2019t mind adding just a little distance or upping the tempo a bit. It\u2019s good to take advantage of a day where you\u2019re feeling better than normal. And, since there are plenty of \u201cmeh\u201d or painful days, for me it\u2019s preferable to launch out of a better-than-expected workout into the next one as opposed to running myself ragged and wasting the boost I could have had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This post isn\u2019t about stretching in the traditional sense, it\u2019s about extending workout distances. Couldn’t resist a bit of word play. This past Saturday I ran eighteen miles though my plan was sixteen. Things changed because at mile twelve I was feeling good and figured I could stretch it out to twenty. After juggling various … <\/p>\n