Stop “Making Up” Workouts

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I grew up in Wisconsin, so as a kid we had a LOT of snow days.

Every time school was canceled, my brother and I were ecstatic.

But after a few days off, my mom would start shaking her head at us.

“You’re going to hate snow days when you have to make it up in June.”

Unlike the public school system, our body doesn’t keep count of the days we “attend” to our workout schedule. Honestly, your body doesn’t really notice that you’re slacking until you get sick, get hurt or stop working out for weeks.

But every athlete I’ve ever coached thinks we should “make up” the workouts we miss.

(Myself included.)

Maybe this habit comes from our education system.

Maybe it comes from the marijuana-like effects running has, which are habit-forming.

Or perhaps it’s due to the perfectionism many of us have about our runs (which I wrote about on my blog).

In any case, guess what?

You don’t have to make up workouts you missed.

In fact, most of the time you shouldn’t bother.