Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Rest Morning #1

I set my alarm for 5:00am with all intentions of getting up to go swim. I'd already packed my bag, laid out my clothes, etc... But when I got up, I realized I really didn't want to go.

How do you tell if you need to rest or if you should suck it up and go work out? I need help with this. This morning I felt pretty sore (mainly my back and upper body, most likely from the gym yesterday), and I lacked all motivation to swim. Or even go to the gym, which obviously I love.

So, I'm staying home until I meet some friends at Kerbey for breakfast. I feel a little guilty, I admit, but looking back over the past two days - I did run a half marathon plus some, swam, lifted weights twice, and biked 18 miles. That's deserving of some rest, right?

(For those of you who think I don't work... and you know who I'm talking about... I'm going to work now! :))

3 comments:

md said...

I did the same exact thing! my bag was packed, my alarm went off at 430 but I just couldn't do it.

I personally struggle with when to rest. I'm getting better at it by scheduling recovery weeks and scheduling optional workouts, and actually skipping the optionals.

Enjoy your rest time!

ps...I didn't know you worked? ;-p

Dionn said...

REST!!!

You of all people should have the upmost confidence in knowing that you are NOT a slacker!!

That means if you are not feeling it, your body is saying PLEASE REST NOW!!

Mark said...

We all mostly do this for fun and enjoyment so of course, if it doesn't seem fun on a particular morning, then skip it, stay in bed.

That said, a couple of rules of thumb:
1) commit to trying the workout for 10 mins, if you still feel blah, skip the rest of the workout.
2) monitor your waking heart rate. If it is slightly elevated from your normal reduce the intensity of your workout; if it is quite elevated from your normal then skip the workout -- your body is telling you to rest.
3) if you skip a workout, do it guilt-free, don't beat yourself up about it as that will just be mentally draining.
4) make your quality hard workouts hard and your active recovery easy workouts easy ... otherwise you risk making the easy workouts too hard and being too beat to make the hard workouts count