 Zzzz... Yes, that really is me. Running keeps you young, right? | So here's a thing I've learned the hard way. Rest is every bit as important as exercise. We have a tendency as runners, or at least, I do and I know I'm not alone, to view the rest days on our training schedules, however vague they may be, as sort of notional, 'maybe I just don't run as hard on those days', suggestions to slack off a bit as opposed to actually stop. Rest is for the weak, for the uncommitted, for the slackers. GET ME OUT THERE, I'll sleep when I'm dead! No, rest is far more important than that, it's the time your body needs to do the actual work in terms of processing the damage you've done during your workouts into the strengthening benefits you expect. |
You wouldn't eat a load of nutritious dinner whilst sitting on the toilet because you expected it to drop straight through you while you magically absorbed all the vitamins and minerals, would you? No, you'd give your stomach some time to actually digest the food before reaching for the Andrex. Thus it is also for physical activity. Sure, you can kid yourself you're a Duracell bunny, and yes, variously, we can keep going for a surprisingly long time before things start to break, but just as a bike needs some maintenance, so do our bodies and if you ignore that, the rust will creep and things will break. Eventually. There may be a long slow, gradual deterioration of performance first of course, but then there will be a breaking point and an injury. If you're reading this and going 'yeah, yeah, whatever, where are my trainers?' like I would have done this time last year then congratulations on not having broken. Yet. Now go and put your feet up. Your next run will be better for it.
