Rest, Recovery and Reflection

Today is a rest day.
For me that  means no training today.  For others, like my BF, that means that could mean very light training.  There’s a difference between “Pro” and “Not-a-Pro”.  You can imagine how many times we’ve had THAT conversation.  He’s been an athlete for over 15 years.  Me… I started my journey to become an athlete 5 years ago.  I only started to feel like an “athlete” about two years ago.  Up until then, I felt like a fraud.  But I digress.


Today is about rest and recovery…
“It’s not that people are over trained, they’re just under recovered” – words of genius uttered from my BF when we were talking about folks being “over trained”.
It makes complete sense.  Once you get on a roll of training, training, training… it’s hard to slow the train down.  (See what I did there?)


But recovery is key to getting better/faster/stronger AND to avoiding injury.  We get injured when we don’t listen to our bodies.  
When I first started down the path of becoming an athlete I didn’t know how to listen to my body.  I couldn’t tell the difference between something being hard and challenging for my body and something being damaging to my body.  Being a home grown couch potato for 35 years will do that to ya.  


My first attempt at becoming a runner was extremely painful.  
I decided to go from zero to a half in a few months.  I joined a training/fundraising organization that told me they could take me from the couch to a half marathon in just a few short months.  Ummm… let’s just say that I learned a LOT of very valuable lessons about how NOT to train and how to listen to my body.


For my friends that are considering taking the (very rewarding) challenge of becoming a runner.  I highly recommend a “Couch to 5K” program.  It’s a realistic plan that helps you reach your goals, injury free.  It’s still challenging, but has more structure and support for the newbie runner.

That’s my Number 2 piece of advice if you want to become a runner.  


My Number 1 piece of advice – Get the right shoes!!!!  
Do NOT skimp on your running shoes.  Don’t start running without the proper shoes.  If you join one of those fundraising/training groups and they say you can wait a couple weeks to get your shoes (cause they want you to go to a “shoe clinic”) don’t wait.  Go to a running store and get running shoes.  I wish someone had told me that when I started “running”.  On my very first training day with the Team, I tried to run in cute tenny shoes that were about 2 years old.  I had shin splints almost immediately.  


Ever had shin splints?  
Yes? – Then you know what I’m talking about.  No? – Trust me, you don’t ever want to feel shin splints.  Sharp, stabbing pain radiating through your shins with every step you take.  Even when you stop running, the pain doesn’t stop.  Nope, it just keeps on hurting.  For the rest of the day.  For the rest of the night.  For the rest of the week!  It can take a loooooong time to recover from shin splints.  Just say “NO” to shin splints… get the right shoes.  


Rest and Recovery are the keys to successful training... and so is Reflection... that way you don't repeat mistakes from your past and you repeat the stuff that worked well.


As always, Active.com has some great articles on this topic.  


Happy Training (Resting)!!!