Two Weeks of Rest
After my half marathon I meant to take a week off. I love my rest, it's just as important as training. I mean, I had to learn something over all these years. After 12 weeks and one big race if I didn't take time off, my body would force me to do it later. It'd be like, "Oh so you thought 3 days off was adequate? Well tough girl, enjoy this time to think while you lay in the MRI. Love, your knee."
I meant to take a week off, but it turned into two at the request of ... every part of my body. I ran for fun a couple times, but mainly used the time to eat all the fried food I wanted, go to a movie on a 'school night', stay up late, sleep in, work, travel to the east coast on a wedding barn mission... I did not cross train, I did not do core work, I did not get my yoga on.
Barn hunting was perfectly timed during my rest weeks, because had I needed to train and look at 6 barns a day across rural Vermont I would have been (somehow) even more overwhelmed than I was. Luckily for you this isn't a wedding blog, so I'll leave that story at this: I saw every barn/field turned reception area in the state of Vermont, including a man's backyard (apparently the 3x5 photos of a 70s wedding in said backyard gives him reason to believe it's a 'wedding venue'), a barn where presidents and legends (like Ben and Jerry) have throw parties and pretty much everything in between.
I'm happy to say after two weeks of Spud's fried fish, and too much red wine, the sloth has awakened. Yesterday, with the encouragement of my friend Lesko I did my first workout. One mile at 5:35, right into 3 miles at a fast by comfortable pace 6:00 - 6:15. And it felt awful in all the right ways.