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I am the father of two of the greatest kids ever, and am fortunate enough to have the most amazing woman as my wife! I am attempting to prove that "Once a Runner - Always a Runner"

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Rest day.. Because your body needs it, even when your mind doesn’t want to!

This is a repost from my Wordpress Blog.


Sometimes rest days are like a toddler's nap. The Child may insist they don't want/need them - yet due to that nap they are MUCH better to be around. Like wise, as a runner, we may not WANT to take a rest day, but our performance is drastically improved (and injury avoided) due to taking that time off.

Now in my case, I had run Monday and Tuesday, and took Weds. off. Many runners would say you don't need a break after 2 days, in fact, I know runners that only take one rest-day a week. There is nothing wrong with any of these options - I think the trick is to know your body and what it wants/needs - especially based on the level of fitness you are currently at, and the extent of the training done on the non-rest days. When I was training for my Marathon, I tried to go 6 days. I followed a pre-written plan. Last year, pre-hernia - I ran two days, with one day off and kept this up as a standard. I also avoided injury, felt good and it seemed to "Work" for me, so I am returning to what worked.

My idea was to get up at 5 am and go running in the dark. The dark is much more peaceful in the morning than at night - as no-one is up and out at that hour, while everyone is rushing to get home in the evening. Once again, a mostly-free evening beat out the loss of sleep, and the alarm got shut off. I'm sure that extra hour will make me run better tonight!


And Today's Christmas Carol is also from the Parlor City Boy's Chorus:


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