Ever have one of those days that the workout seems more challenging than ever, you may even wonder if you got in worse shape overnight or that something was wrong with you? This topic was brought up in one of the workouts I was coaching earlier today, and I was reminded of it on my run.

Someone asked, why is this so hard today- is it cause my nutrition sucked yesterday? I felt like I was dying today during my run so I understood the sentiment of hard when I didn't it to feel hard but it lead me to think about all the factors that can effect performance in a workout.

Here are some factors that can effect how you can perform in a workout and also, not only that how you feel in a workout:

• Hydration

• Nutrition- did you eat really good food vs junk, running on empty or fueling for nutrition

• How you slept

• Stress Level

• Nagging injuries

• Time of the month (females)

• Shoes/ apparel- are your shoes supporting your feet, are you shorts shirts shifting as you move

• Time of day- morning, afternoon, evening

• Cold/ illness

• What your workout was the day before

• If the workout was supposed to be hard- not all workouts should be super hard or super easy because your body needs recovery too. The workout planned for me today was a high stress workout. Turned out high stress- means me thinking it sucked but when I looked back, I performed the workout for the training effect as prescribed as you can see in photos below but guess what it was hard- harder than a normal effort even though speed wasn't overall faster

  

  As you can see by those, hard workouts can be hard but the training effect can be there.

  If you ever have one of those days where you feel like the workout seems impossible, just remember- most people have those days. Keep working at it. Remember what factors can have an effect on how you perform but also remember some days are intentionally meant to be a challenging workout! :)