This week of training was a real struggle for me on the motivation front. Coming off a great half marathon, physically I needed a day or two of rest before I my legs were ready to dive back into training, and mentally, I felt like I owed myself a week of easy running.

I tried to combat the desire to do nothing but sit on my butt and catch up on TV, but week five was definitely not the most successful week of training for me. In fact, I was pretty much a huge slacker.


Training So Far:
Week One
Week Two
Week Three
Week Four

Week Five:

Monday: Rest

Though I wasn't super sore Sunday after I finished the race, by Monday my calves were aching and my quads didn't like the steps very much. Rest it was.

Tuesday: Rest

Things were starting to loosen up in my legs, but I still had a lot of tightness, so I opted for another rest day. Sleeping in until 6 a.m. was such a nice treat.

Wednesday: 3 miles

My legs were finally starting to feel OK, so I went out for a three miler to see how things held up. I started slow to let everything loosen up and I was happy I was able to push the pace a little bit at the end.

Thursday: Rest

Now I'm just being lazy. I wanted to sleep in and I couldn't convince myself to do the run when I got home from work.

Friday: Swapped my rest day with Saturday

Normally Fridays are my long run days, but since the Terps were away and I wasn't tailgating on Saturday, I decided I wanted to do my long run then, so I swapped these two days in my plan.

Saturday: 10K

This was a cut back week on the long run front and I was pretty glad that it was. Mentally, my mind wasn't really into running this week at all. While I enjoyed the 10K mainly because the weather was beautiful, I was wishing I was still curled up in bed.

Sunday: Rest

My football league was cancelled this week and instead of going out to run an easy three miler, I sat on the sofa and watched the Eagles' season implode.

Total mileage: 9.2

For whatever reason, I really struggled mentally last week. I just wasn't in the mood to run, at all. Normally, that's something I can pretty easily work around and I can get myself out of the door eventually, but last week it just wasn't happening. Part of it is definitely because I felt I "deserved" time off after the race, and the other part was just pure and simple laziness.

My main goal for week six is to get back on the bandwagon. I've rested plenty, it's time to get back to the grind. Weekly mileage that low is not going to help me set any new PRs in Philly.

I can't undo a week of slacker training, but I can improve from here on out.

Onward and upward.