Rest Day

So today is a rest day.

I ran hard and long yesterday, so a rest day is necessary. It was an unusually humid, coming after a long Friday of rain on a warm hot Madrid. So as I was rounding behind the temple, looking down the hill towards Casa de Campo, I saw most of my day shrouded in white mist. And I should've known it was going to be awful. I was soaked, as if some dunked me in water, through my clothes before I was at 6 km. The park was just saturated and I was tuning though it in the blazing sun of 8am.

Next it was a new route. I went up the km hill that is the first part of my park run but instead of turning left into the western side of the park, I went over the hill and down into the northeastern corner. It was a beautiful empty moment of the run. At 8am there was no one in that part of Casa de Campo. I ran covered in darkness as empty sparse tree cover became deep forest. I ran over a small river that seemed populated with dozens of croaking frogs. Something I hadn't heard since I was a child in Puerto Rico. By the time I turned towards the wall that is the northern boundary of the park, the sun was high and blazing. It sheer physical despair now. The road home was filled with humid aching kms.

So now it is the day after. I woke with pains in my calves and quads and typical pain in my left ankle. All hallmarks of long hard run. I waddled all of yesterday after my run. I had commitments that kept me from simply staying in bed for the day. And I was again waddling to the bathroom. It wasn't til 3pm that I was thinking about a recovering run. It was the most difficult decision this weekend.

I enjoy recovery runs. They give me a feeling of being able to bounce back from my long runs and say you can't defeat me. But then there are days, like today. When you know that resting maybe the best possible choice.

So I was sitting in a terraza with my girlfriend reading Running for Mortals. An interesting though not exciting book. And I was struck by the need to go for a run. I had to think and think and rethink why I took rest days.

I take rest days because....

1. I am 41 years old and I need more time to recover than I did in my twenties and even thirties.

2. Rest days make Run days sweeter and more meaningful. I will have better stronger runs if I take time off from time to time.

3. It was only a few weeks ago, as my girlfriend pointed out, that I started to run longer than 8 km. I am moving towards 20-30 km every Saturday and that is something that I have just put on my plate. So go slow.

4. It is hot in Madrid. By hot I mean it is already 30ish during the day. I either get up early, which is weekday standard, or don't run. I will last never get acclimatized to this heat. So more rest days are need.

All this is going though my head... I also enjoying the day in the cool breezy outdoor cafe. Now, I am enjoying the late day air conditioned wifi of a bookstore. All this would have been eclipsed by the agony of a slow hard hot recovering run. Maybe in the future it won't be such a painful ordeal, but today it is. And so I need to remind myself of why I take rest days.


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