Give it a rest, lady.
I’ve been taking it pretty easy since the race, and I gotta say, it’s been awesome.
I mentioned in my last post that my joints were pretty outspoken about how much they hated running on pavement. My knees, hips, and ankles all got over it pretty quickly, but that old SI injury didn’t give in so easily, so I spent a week or so icing and stretching and doing PT work.
Since then I’ve been doing a lot of fun stuff. Mainly lots of hiking (the weather is great and the bugs are dead) (SUCK IT, BUGS) and horseback riding, with some 30 Day Shred or other light DVD workouts thrown in now and then if time is a factor, but I try to keep the indoor workouts to a minimum this time of year, always conscious of the fact that winter is coming, and pretty soon it’ll just be me and Jillian Michaels hanging out in my living room for the next five months.
And man, I feel great. Really, really great. Physically and mentally. As much as I enjoyed having a goal to work for all summer, there were times when it did feel a little like drudgery, and it’s been nice to just do what I want to do, when I want to do it. And do nothing if I feel like it, too.
I’ve always been crap at taking rest days, and sometimes, despite my best efforts to be good, I end up popping in a DVD at 9pm, because my willpower finally gives out and I need to do something. I think that worked against me big time this summer, especially when I was dealing with the heat, which saps my energy so quickly.
My true rest days usually happen sort of organically, the result of a hectic life rather than any set schedule. I look at the calendar and go, “Well, Friday is gonna be a beast for 18 hours straight, so I won’t work out that day, and that’ll be my rest day.” It’s what works for me with my lifestyle, and I don’t have to break my neck to try to squeeze a workout into an already stressful day. What’s changed recently is that I’m not quite as resentful about it as I once was. No more bitching to myself in my head about how I’m missing a workout in order to do XYZ. And that feels pretty good, too.
I think I let my worries about race day and my natural DO NOT WANT reaction to the unpleasant weather really get to me over the summer, and I finally feel relieved of both now. I think I will wallow in this Pollyanna mindset for a little while, because somewhere around January it’ll just be a steady stream of whining about how it’s so COLD and DARK and it just SNOWED AGAIN and won’t winter EVER END?
I bet you guys can’t wait for that, huh?