Off Balance

It’s not very often that I feel like my training is in complete opposition to each other, but lately I feel like running and CrossFit are clashing horribly. I’ve been going to CrossFit three days a week and running three days a week for more than a year, but as one activity builds in intensity it throws off the other. With the CrossFit Open coming up fast, workouts have been brutal to prepare everyone who is planning to compete. And although I won’t sign up for the open, I plan to do all of the workouts, so I’m trying to hang in there with the increased weights, increased repetitions, etc., but I’m finding myself increasingly exhausted and unable to keep my schedule up.

I had the same problem when I was training for my last half marathon and trying to keep progressing in CrossFit at the same time. I hate to admit it, but sometimes my workout schedule turns against me. I am trying to come back from a winter mileage decrease while keeping up with everyone at the gym, and I have come to realize that what I’m doing isn’t working. Not only am I not able to increase my mileage (or even get my sore, concrete filled legs moving), but I’m not doing my best at CrossFit either.

These past two weeks have been eye opening. I missed runs to instead take a much much needed rest day, but even so I was too tired to run my long run at the speed I wanted to. At the gym there was a workout I would usually crush, and instead I got trampled on. It’s time to take a step back and decide what my priorities are.

While I think about some hard decisions (Do I cut back on running to prepare for the open? Am I willing to get three months behind in running right before jumping into half marathon training? Would I be that upset if I stepped back my weights at the gym and cared less about the open workouts?), I am going to do two important things this week: 1) listen to my body and ease off when I need to and 2) only allow myself a single double day of running and yoga (no more running and CrossFit on the same day). I am also going to make an extra effort to get at nine hours of sleep each night and eat well.