Running six days per week

With scenes like these greeting me every morning for the past few weeks (seems like months), it’s surprising that I’ve only missed one run due to the weather this year.

This is one of the reasons I train six days a week without fail. Somewhere along the line something happens that forces me to take a rest day. Wednesday morning was one of those days. I don’t mind running in the rain and do so often, but running in ankle deep water is not an option for me. This is how it’s been raining in Johannesburg lately. Roads are rivers and rivers are floods. Our pool has overflowed 3 times this year already. The hole beneath the trampoline is 1m deep and filled with water that just remains there.

Water is everywhere and not sinking into the ground anymore. The water table must be filled to capacity. I’m not complaining and know the dams are filling up for the dry season. It’s just weird to see everything this wet. In contrast the Southern part of the country is extremely dry with a lot of areas being declared disaster zones.

Getting back to the 6 days of running per week; I’ve done so for 8 weeks now and that’s why one day missed because of heavy rain doesn’t matter at all. In fact, it must have been a good rest day for my body. Many runners don’t run 6 days of the week, but this has always worked for me. I alternate hard and easy days and my body seems to be used to that. The most weeks I’ve been able to run 6 days without any forced rest days are 11. So I always follow my routine and when something happens that causes a rest day I do just that…I rest.