Too Much, Too Soon?

I don’t know if I needed more recovery from my 29 October half marathon or if I needed to start with less mileage after a week off, but my legs have felt shot all this week. They are a lot more sore than they should be for the mileage I’ve put on them this week (32 miles through three days), especially considering that all of my runs have been at an easy effort.

I considered just running through it with continued easy miles, but instead decided to cut back a bit. Instead of four consecutive 80-mile weeks, I’m going to shoot for 70-70-80-80. The big difference is that I’ll either take an off day or two days with shorter runs during the 70-mile weeks. I’m confident that this change will work for me. Yesterday, I was scheduled to run 15 miles on two runs (7 at lunch and 8 in the evening). I skipped the second run and got a good night’s sleep. My legs feel much better after only one easy day.