The Art of Rest

Rest.  Wow.  What a concept.

After months and months of solid training.  With a strong base.  A calculated taper.

You go out and run the race of your life.

Then you get to rest.

Rest!

I like to give myself 2 to 3 weeks of just playful recovery/rest.  Go run when I feel like it.  Don’t follow a plan.  Leave the watch at home.  I put on the shoes that look good at the time and go run wherever I feel drawn.  Sometimes it’s just 5 miles around the neighborhood and sometimes it’s a nice, slow 6-hour adventure on single track.

You wanna veg out for three days and watch streaming epsiodes of Breaking Bad?  Wanna stay up til midnight, Google surf and eat a bowl of cereal before you go to sleep?  DO IT!  You earned it!

And it feels awesome.  Knowing that in a few weeks I’ll be back to the hard, disciplined grind of training for that target event makes the few weeks of active rest a damn fine prize.  It refreshes me.  Reminds me why I love to run.  Makes me hunger and want it again.

I always do.  I always want it again.