I could hardly wait for my afternoon run. The plan was to complete a 12 mile run with a 5 mile tempo thrown in. Those who know me know how much I enjoy to run. The air was crisp, skies were blue and I envisioned this workout ending with a fatigued, yet satisfied body and soul.
I started my warm up as usual and I felt a little tightness in my tibialis anterior (the muscle just to the outside of the “shin” bone). As my warm up continued so did the tightness. My body was definitely speaking to me and I could choose to forge ahead with the hope that this would not get worse or I could cut my workout short. Complete the workout at the risk of being sidelined for the next week or more? OR Turn around and call it a day? Nobody wants to turn around, right? We are all taught to believe to “suffer through the pain – no pain no gain”. If I turned around, wouldn’t I be a quitter? Well, I chose to throw in the towel and end my workout with a little less than two miles completed. It’s one workout and one workout isn’t going to make or break the season…unless it’s the one workout that pushes you over the edge and forces an extended break from training.
Your body often speaks to you, letting you know that you are headed for danger and we need to be in tune with this. Rarely will an injury just come out of nowhere. Injury prevention is always easier to deal with than injury care. Your body is a fine tuned machine and you need to take the time to care of it.
Tomorrow is a new day and there is a very good chance that everything will be back to normal.
Update: I wrote the above post yesterday and today I ran and felt great. Yesterday’s plan was a 12 mile run with a 5 mile tempo. Instead, I completed 10 miles with a 2.5 mile tempo. I felt like I could have easily extended the tempo to 5 miles, but I was careful not to push it…because just yesterday my body was “speaking”.