I was a little worried about getting back to marathon practice this week. I wasn’t planning on it, but last week I took a break from running. I’ve taken on many commitments this semester and I’m used to being busy, but after waking up early at 6:30 every morning to work out and still expecting myself to perform well in academics, extracurricular and my internship, by the time Thanksgiving rolled around I was feeling  worn out. When I got to my parent’s house, I was ready for a break. I knew what I wanted most was to spend time with friends and family and unwind. I also told myself I would run every day.

To do that without conflicting the time I wanted to reserve for friends and family I knew I’d have to continue waking up at 6:30 to get my run in before they woke up. But my body had other ideas. The first day, when I slept through the alarm, I felt so guilty. I joined my mom for a walk in the morning when I finally woke up at 10 a.m. Though, when we were running errands or making preparations for Thanksgiving, that missed run was in the back of my head. 

The next day, the same thing happened. At first, I felt guilty again for not running. But I realized that by sleeping in my body was telling me something. I was tired. It was hard, but I had to take a step backwards and realize that it was okay to be tired.

My goal is to finish a marathon. Unlike in the past, where I have trained to break a certain time or finish a certain place, I am training to compete and finish 26.2 miles. I don’t need to be so hard on myself. As long as I am mostly consistent with my training, it’s okay to deviate a little from my routine.

My family is very active, but none of them are runners. Once I accepted that I didn’t have to run every day that week, I had a great time working out in alternative ways with them, like going for walks with my mom, playing golf with my dad and crawling the mall on Black Friday with my sister.

I came back to school this weekend refreshed and re-energized. At the end of the day, I'm training to stay active and accomplish a worthwhile goal. Although I have racing goals in the back of my mind, for once I'm training primarily to finish. I have the rest of my life to get better and faster at the marathon, but for the time being I am happy to know that I will have just completed one by March.

It’s important to listen to your body and be flexible enough to change up your routine when you’re in a slump. I was so focused on maintaining my routine I didn’t take care of my body in the way I needed to.

If I had pushed my body and spent the week trying to sneak in extra workouts I would not have felt as rested and motivated to get back into training. This week, I was so happy to go to practice because the week off made me feel rested and ready to start again.

The  training group I’m in meets in the mornings, which is what I’ve generally been going to, but they also hold practice at nights. I let myself sleep in two days and moved my schedule around so I could attend the night practices instead.

I also wrote down my top three goals for the marathon on a post-it note and put it up on the wall by my bed. I think writing down goals are important because they keep you motivated, on-track and put every day into perspective.

Here are my fitness goals:

1)      Keep track of my mood and workouts by writing them down in a running log

2)      Stay consistent with my training but be open to changing it up now and then

3)      Take the time to enjoy every workout

What are your fitness goals?

Happy Feet is a weekly health and fitness column following Jackie as she trains for her first marathon. Reach Jackie here.