{"id":11363,"date":"2010-06-15T11:18:50","date_gmt":"2010-06-15T15:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/foodembrace.com\/?p=11363"},"modified":"2010-06-15T11:18:50","modified_gmt":"2010-06-15T15:18:50","slug":"honoring-rest-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/2010\/06\/honoring-rest-days\/","title":{"rendered":"Honoring Rest Days"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Last night I was super tired and didn’t get my usual “down time” of reading in bed before calling lights out.\u00a0 Scott and I started watching this season’s final episodes of Lost and I think we cranked out like 3 episodes last night.\u00a0 I was so tired when I finally crashed out in bed.\u00a0 Not too late, but 1\/2 an hour later than my normal bedtime of 10pm.\u00a0 Sleep is important to me in a big way and I try to make sure that I get plenty of it.\u00a0 Not just because if I don’t, I will quickly turn into a psycho-hosebeast but also because I want to preform well when I workout.<\/p>\n

Crappy sleep = crappy workout.<\/p>\n

I want to be at my best!\u00a0 I’m pretty good at knowing when my body just needs a rest though and when I can push through.\u00a0 Today when I woke up to get my day started and take care of Rocky, I knew right away that my body needed more sleep and rest, not a run.\u00a0 I finished up with Rocks and then went back to bed.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I just need more sleep, so I’ll sleep in and then workout later.\u00a0 Perhaps not getting in a 6 mile run but a 4 miler instead.\u00a0 Or I’ll do a workout DVD or some yoga.<\/p>\n

Other times, like today, I can just tell that my body needs a break.\u00a0 Two years ago when I vowed to get healthier, I also vowed to pay attention to my bod and listen to what it tries to tell me.\u00a0 I’ve become pretty good at this and at respecting its wishes.\u00a0 I know the difference between needing a little bit more sleep and needing a total rest day.\u00a0 I can’t explain it, but my body feels differently between the two.<\/p>\n

When I first started working out, I didn’t take rest days because I didn’t think I could afford too.\u00a0 Now I see how important rest days are and how important it is to respect your body.<\/p>\n

I have a “scheduled” rest day during the week and it’s on Fridays.\u00a0 Sometimes it’s a full rest day and sometimes I do run in the morning.\u00a0 It depends on how I feel and how the rest of my week was.\u00a0 More often than not, it’s a rest day.\u00a0 Occasionally, like today, my body lets me know I need another one.\u00a0 Before I used to feel guilty about taking a day off of running.\u00a0 Now I do not.\u00a0 I need it, my body says so.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I feel guilty about missing a workout.\u00a0 As if other runners or people look at me and think, “She’s a runner, she should want to run all the time!”<\/p>\n

I think people (and fellow runners)\u00a0 forget that running is hard<\/em>.\u00a0 And it’s hard on the body<\/em>!\u00a0 No matter what kind of runner you are, everybody needs a rest day.\u00a0 Your body is naturally going to want to take a break here and there.\u00a0 It doesn’t mean you don’t like running anymore.\u00a0 Or that you’re slacking.\u00a0 Or that you aren’t motivated.<\/p>\n

It just means that you need a break.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This applies to all kinds of workouts.\u00a0 You’re just going to need a break.\u00a0 And it’s okay.<\/p>\n

How do you feel about rest days?\u00a0 Do you listen to what your body tries to tell you?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night I was super tired and didn’t get my usual “down time” of reading in bed before calling lights out.\u00a0 Scott and I started watching this season’s final episodes of Lost and I think we cranked out like 3 episodes last night.\u00a0 I was so tired when I finally crashed out in bed.\u00a0 Not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[58,52],"tags":[53],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4KYWa-2Xh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodembrace.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}