You can see from my workout in Training Peaks, that I didn’t complete my run today.  My legs were completely dead, so I stopped running and ended my workout early.

I have completed dozens of runs over the past few months when my legs were tired, so why did I stop today.  I stopped because my legs were more than just tired; they were dead.  This is a completely different feeling.  When my legs are dead, the feeling of tiredness gets worse as the run goes on, especially when going up hills.  My pace doesn’t pick up and often slows over time. 

I have written about running on tired legs before.  What normally happens is that after a few miles, my legs begin to ‘wake up’.  When this happens, the feeling of tiredness subsides a little and my pace usually picks up.

That didn’t happen today, so after I had completed the warm up part of my workout, I faced a choice.  Push through and get the negative split efforts done, or stop.  I chose to stop, mainly because I am so close to my race.  An extra negative split run is really not going to improve my fitness. Conversely, pushing through significant fatigue, might put me into a hole, that could affect my preparation for Chattanooga.

I think I played it smart today.  I stopped running when my body told me … “enough is enough”.