Zzzmas

Rest. A dirty word for some sporty types. At best it has overtones of burnout and lethargy. At worst, just down right laziness. ‘Rest is for the weak. Sleep when you are dead.’ Such sentiments can lead us guiltily into our next session.  And perhaps to the next one. And even to the one after that.  But what if you really are just tired. And what if all you really need to improve is quite the opposite of what you are giving your body? Sometimes the answer might just be simple. Rest.

I am increasingly becoming one of those people who like to keep track of things. I have begun a basic week-by-week chart in the kitchen where I plot totals of the running I have been doing. Black is for steady jogging. Red is for speedwork. Blue is for any extras such as core training or an exercise class and green is for cycling miles. At the end of each week I tot it all up with a cup of tea and see where it has all got me. If I was an intelligent chap it would now show measured but steady progress in both miles covered and elevation tackled. But because I am not, it isn’t. Instead it is a jumbled affair of decent efforts one week followed by tiredness and ‘work getting in the way another.’ This is then followed by a let’s-try-and-make-up-for-last-week’s-low-mileage- week the following one. Repeat this cycle for a few weeks and unsurprisingly the special white colour code manifests itself with a vengeance…

Right now I’m making rest, the top training priority. With the two week Christmas break just two days away and the gentle return to the good life and no alarm clocks now imminent, it would be a real shame to arrive at this point entirely depleted both in mind and body. I have been feeling off for the last two weeks and have cut short, or cut out entirely, lots of runs. Reluctantly I could have forced myself out of the door and up a hill and dialled into ‘soldier on regardless mode.’ But there’s plenty of time to get fitter and a few runs missed won’t send me spiralling down into the never get off the couch category: despite what any dispassionate training schedule might have me believe.

Quite the opposite actually. I hope to run a lot next year. Tomorrow is the first day to register for the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc series of ultra-distance trail events and I will be putting my name in the hat. I would hope to get up to 80-100mile training weeks in the build-up to this and run lots of beautiful trails and get in many gruelling sessions. But you certainly can’t embark on a week of training like this without the right levels of psyche. And getting yourself all burnt out, and fed up, and forcing yourself out the door when your body and your mind are asking you to just chill your beans and wash your socks for the evening –well, that’s not going to get you anywhere. Right now I’d much rather just run the clock down to Friday and feel rested; ready to enjoy some cool winter runs in the frost with no alarm clocks or tiredness in the legs. And so when I do finally open the front door again, it will be with daylight and excitement and rested legs stretching out well into the New Year.