I’ve been in denial, y’all.

As a trainer, one thing I’m way guilty of is not following the same advice I give to my clients. If I feel like a client is overtraining I tell them they should take a short break. A few days, maybe a week. Overtraining could lead to burn out or even injury and I don’t want either of those to happen to anyone I’m working with.

Lately I’ve been struggling with some highly overactive calves. Waking up in the morning hurts, standing up at work hurts, starting a fairly common movement hurts. After they get stretched out a bit, they feel fine, but it would be an understatement to say they’ve been high-maintenance lately. Half marathon training begins in two weeks and it’s ill advised (read: stupid) to take on such a program with overactive calf muscles. I thought about taking a break.

But then the fear that lives in my head crept in. It’s a dark cloud that takes over my brain and tells me that break time equals fat time. All the gains I’ve built over the last few months will disappear and will be replaced by jiggly ugly fatty fat fatness. I decided I may not take a break after all.

It wasn’t until last Friday when I took class at TITLE Boxing Club and a member noticed I wasn’t bringing the pain like I usually do. I told him my issue and after hearing I had race training coming up, he informed me I should probably take some time off — “maybe even two weeks!”

Asshole.

He was right. I kept denying it but I now had confirmation. I need to take a break.

When my alarm went off at 4:30am today, I laid there and thought about what my options were. My calves have been getting much better since addressing how I sit at the office and stretching them frequently throughout the day but they’re still not better. My original plan was to take a week off completely — no boxing, no lifting, no running.

But I hate that idea.

So I made a deal with myself that instead of taking one week completely off, I would take two weeks half-off. My plan is to not miss any lifting days and still show up (and show out) for the boxing classes I’m scheduled to lead, and that’s it. No extracurricular running and no attending a class I’m not teaching. That seems reasonable, no?

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With the half-break built in this week, training looks a little different. I’m scheduled to rock the TITLE Boxing Club Power Hour Tuesday night, Wednesday morning and on Saturday morning and intend to lift heavy things with my arms on Tuesday, legs on Friday morning. My routine for this week is similar to last week with one change:

Upper/Lower Body Days

Weight: 95%
Sets: 5
Reps: 4

There’s also a tiny difference in programming for legs day that I implemented last week for the first time — I’ve eliminated calf raises and jumping rope. It’s only eliminated for now because of my overuse but I figure in the future I can likely eliminate them entirely because I get enough work on them throughout the week anyway. We’ll see.

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I slept an extra 2-1/2 hours today and while you’d think I would feel amazing you’d be completely incorrect. I felt awful today. Like I had a sleep hangover. Like I’m writing this at lunchtime and I feel like I’ve not woken up yet. Still. Even after coffee and breakfast and mid-morning snack. Oy.

Anyway, here’s to hoping I can make it through this “rest” period without smashing a wall or gaining 50lbs (I’ll likely lose weight, honestly), and be ready to rock when it’s time for half marathon training to come around.

Y’all be good in the meantime.