RECOVERY?

On Monday, I ran 20 miles with my teammate.  It was long and slightly painful but, as most long runs are when they are over, incredibly rewarding.  The training plan I am currently following typically has me doing a 4-5 mile recovery run the day after the long run.  This has always made sense to me....these runs are just a shake out of the legs, but nothing too crazy.  So, you can imagine my surprise yesterday when I looked at my plan and noticed it had me doing a 45-60 minute recovery run.

WHAT???

In my book, that's freakin' long and not what I would call 'easy'.  What happened to my short and sweet recovery day?  Now that I've had time to think it through, I'm realizing that the point is most likely to push me to my limit right now as I'm a only a few short weeks away from my taper.  At the time, however, that logic did not flow through my mind.  Really, all I could think about was how tired my legs were and wondering how the hell I was going to eek out a 45-60 minute run.  A series of complaints, excuses and questions ran through my head prior to this run.  Strangely, when they all came together, the first letter of each word spelled out the word RECOVERY.  Ok, not really.  But I was procrastinating and by trying to make this work I was able to stall the inevitable for a little bit longer.  Here's what I came up with:

R - Really?  45-60 minutes?  Can that be right?
E - Easy is really, really slow, right?  Like 'granny shuffle' slow?
C - Come on, Greg (running master and creator of my plan).  45-60 minutes after a long run seems a bit much, no?

Hey, Rebecca. I know I look super nice,
but you still have to run 45-60 minutes today.

O - Ok, fine.  But, if I'm running for an hour, I can easily justify another fancy coffee.  Maybe not a a grande, but definitely a tall.

In place of the medal, picture a mocha.  And that would be me.
Running for coffee.  And I'm totally fine with that.

V - Very slow.  Very steady.  No watch.  No pressure.  Just miles.
E - Exactly what week am I tapering again?
R - Right foot, left foot.  Right foot, left foot.
Y - Yes.  Yes you can.  You can do it.  Let's go.

In the end, it wasn't too bad.  Slow and steady with some good music is usually pretty manageable.  And, really, all along I knew I was going to bang it out.  But I had to complain a little, right?  It's all part of the "recovery" process.

Listen to this:
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