Rest is part of the work

I made a small change to my usual routine today. It is a rest day so instead of putting on my fitness watch, I put on my "just tell the time" watch. This doesn't seem like much, but throughout the day it reminded me this is a rest day and I should take it seriously. I know it will alter the every day metrics being recorded by the fitness watch, but that's ok. Does everything need to measured all the time? Apparently not because I have no idea what my "body battery" reading is this evening. I just know I feel sorta tired and should go to bed soon. I'm not sure my stress level, but I suspect it was a little elevated getting the kids off to bed. I didn't count my steps wheeling around the grocery store getting charcuterie materials for an exhibition opening tomorrow, but if I needed to guess, that would have been the highest concentration of steps in the day. 

The deeper I go into the training cycle the more I will value the weekly rest day on Wednesdays. Last training cycle, I felt more tempted to run on my rest day, but with the cold right now, I experienced no temptation this morning to get out the door as by body lingered in bed a little longer than usual. 

Rest is part of the work. 

Rest is part of the rhythm.

It isn't intuitive, because so much of what I am bombarded with on a day to day basis is an equivalency between MORE and BETTER. Have more meetings. More programs. More content. But having a rest day is teaching me this isn't entirely true. Sometimes it is rest that propels me toward a goal. Room in the margins to recover makes for a healthier existence. Every gap doesn't need filling. 

There will be plenty more running on the docket later this week. 8mi including 6 at marathon pace tomorrow, 6miles Friday, 8 miles Saturday, 10 miles on Sunday. 

It's ok to rest.