Sometimes the Wilderness Sucks
Posted: March 31, 2012 Filed under: Faith | Tags: faith, Lent, loneliness, wilderness 4 CommentsI have been coping pretty well with the absence of TV, Movies, Radio, and Books during Lent. I have found endless ways to entertain and amuse myself, but sooner or later there was bound to come a situation in which the best laid plans went out the window. Atypically, Brian had plans tonight that left me on my own (much more commonly, I am the one gallivanting off and leaving him home with the cat).
I actually thought I had it all worked out. When he left, I headed down to our favorite watering hole. However, when I got there I found it was jam-packed full or theater go-ers. No problem, it was about 20 mins to show time, so I ordered a glass of wine and figured I would wait out the crowd. Show time came and went and while about half the place emptied out, a LOT of people stayed. Every seat at the bar was taken and there were no friendly faces in sight (note: there were actually 2 *very* friendly faces, Elizabeth and Michael, who were working – but as the place was slammed they were more than occupied just trying to keep up with the crowd).
This left me sitting at a sofa in the back by myself, which felt vaguely pathetic. I’m perfectly happy and able to strike up a conversation with someone I’ve never met if I am sitting at the bar, but no one walks up to a person sitting by themselves in the corner and asks how their day went. Also, had it been slower, I could have been happy at the bar chatting with Michael and Elizabeth between other customers. My original plan was to order some food, slowly sip my wine and time my exit so I got home the same time as Brian. But given my current situation when Michael came to see if I wanted a second glass, I instead took the check. He asked what I was up to and I actually told him I was headed home to hang out with the cat. Oh my God, I just took one step to becoming the world’s most pathetic cat-lady.
Under other circumstances, this would have been a great time to swing by the store to grab some ice cream and curl up on the sofa (yes, with the cat) and watch a chick flick. But no movies, no TV, no distractions allowed these 40 days. I walked home to a quiet house and I was suddenly consumed by loneliness.
Loneliness is an unpleasant feeling in which a person feels a strong sense of emptiness and solitude resulting from inadequate levels of social relationships. ~Wikipedia
I did the next logical thing which was to fling myself across my bed and have a good cry. After I had no more use for that and I was just laying there, I started thinking about the whole point of Lent, which is to emulate Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. I wondered if Jesus was depressed and lonely during this time. The Gospels don’t say – the only clues we get are that he was hungry (Matthew and Luke), and that the angels attended him (Mathew and Mark). I know I certainly don’t do well when I haven’t eaten and if the angels were in attendance I’m guessing it wasn’t to hang out and socialize. I can only speculate, but I suspect he at least had some very lonely moments.
I considered giving up and turning on the TV. Easter is only a week away, it’s practically Sunday already, excuse, excuse, justification, rationalization, blah-blah-blah. But I didn’t. Darkness and temptation will find us whether we ‘fast’ for 40 days or not. Sometimes life sucks. Some days are filled with loneliness. But if we hold true to our beliefs (whatever they may be) we can resist temptation. I choose to observe Lent as a way to remind myself that it is possible to be faithful and true, regardless of the circumstance or difficulties I am facing. And this applies not only to my spiritual journey, but to my relationships, my running, and my work. It is easy to turn off the TV when I am with friends having fun, it is far harder when I am home alone and ‘hungry’ for human companionship. Learning to resist and to say no allows us to accomplish our goals and make our dreams come true, and the best way I know to learn is to practice.
“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.” ~Unknown
You can turn off the radio, but you can’t shut out the music
Posted: March 25, 2012 Filed under: Faith, Life's Observations | Tags: faith, happiness, Lent, music, sacrifice 4 CommentsI have a terrible affliction. Anyone who has been married to, or worked for me, has experienced it first-hand. I get songs stuck in my head. Doesn’t matter what kind of music: Lady Gaga, Disney, church hymns, TV commercial jingles (think I’m kidding – ask my former team about the time I got the Xfinity theme stuck in my head…). Anything and everything can get stuck in there and it does not particularly seem to matter if I even like that song, or know all the words to it. I find the only solace I get is to share the ‘song of the day’ with those around me and see if I can find a kindred spirit. On those days when some tune is bouncing around in my head, I come into work and announce it out loud to see who is going to go on the musical journey with me. Generally speaking, I can find an innocent bystander who now has it stuck in their heads as well (and my personal favorite is when I announce that day’s song and the person has never heard of it, so they feel compelled to Google it and then they get it stuck in their heads).
After giving up the radio and MP3 player for Lent, I thought I might be freed from this scourge for 40 days. Ha! I am going to church on Sundays, so the ratio of church hymns in my repertoire has gone up exponentially. But that’s not all, I find I can just read some reference to a song and, blammo, it’s now on the list. Or, let’s say it’s a particular day of the week, like, oh, Friday. And, yep, Rebecca Black’s, “Friday” starts playing on my mental mp3 player. (And, just for the record, I cannot stand that song!)
Plus the sickness has expanded and I have caught myself several times singing the song of the day out loud to the cat (with the words adjusted, of course, to either work her name into the lyrics, or to tailor the meaning of the song to be more relevant for cats). I am wandering around my stone cold silent house humming and singing to the cat, the husband, or even just to myself.
What is going on here??
I think if you are a musical person, if music touches your heart and soul, turning off the radio for 40 days is not going to change that. I’m not sure I actually realized I was a “musical person,” par se, but the truth is that I have always sung funny versions of songs to the cat, and getting songs stuck in my head is hardly anything new. Although you could not pay me good money to sing in front of people (seriously, there is not enough money or booze in the world to make me sing in public, so don’t even waste your time thinking you can figure out a way to make me), I do love to sing in the car along with the radio. One day years ago I was driving to work and belting my guts out to some song I don’t even remember now (but I do remember singing it very impressively…). I got into the kitchen at the office and a fellow employee commented that I must have enjoyed my commute that morning. He had driven up next to me on his motorcycle and said that I was giving the performance of a lifetime without even seeing him there next to me on the highway.
So, you can turn off the radio, pack up the MP3 player, but if you got the music in you, it’s there to stay.
Are runners in love with pain?
Posted: March 19, 2012 Filed under: Running | Tags: endurance athlete, Half Marathon, injuries, Training Leave a comment
You might think we are given the amount of time we spend dealing with our various aches, pains, and overuse injuries. This season I’m dealing with a flare up of plantar fasciitis that I originally struggled with many years ago walking the 3-day walk for breast cancer. P-F wont kill you, but it sure makes it hard to get out of bed in the morning. (And getting out of bed has been hard enough as it is lately with the return of stupid daylight savings time.)
What causes P-F? Well, running for long periods of time on hard surfaces (check). Also being overweight (check…). I find that one particularly frustrating. I am running so I can be less overweight and this thing I’m doing to be healthier is actually negatively impacted by being overweight. I have no one to blame for the weight problem but myself, but it still feels slightly unfair now that I’m trying to do better. I am doing any manner of the things recommended for treating plantar fasciitis except the one thing that would probably help the most – stopping running. I don’t think runners so much like pain, but we sure do love running and we’re willing to put up with a lot of discomfort in order to keep going. I am happy to report that some of my measures are starting to show results (so you can stop worrying now, parental-type readers), but it’s likely to be an issue I’ll have to attend to throughout the season.
A co-worked asked me this morning if I got snowed on while running this past Saturday. It was cold, it rained some, snowed a little, and the trail was covered in puddles. By the time I got done with my run my shoes and my legs were coated with mud. It’s the kind of weather that chills you to the bone and I’m not going to lie it’s a little bit miserable at the get-go, and maybe at the middle bit, and definitely after the end when you are standing around, but for that part where your muscles are warmed up and you aren’t cold anymore and you are running down a dirt trail through the woods, literally nothing beats it. There are two times when I love running more than just about anything else – when I’m in that zone where the world melts away, and the moment your feet step across the finish line of a race. When I close my eyes and think about the satisfaction and pure joy I will get from finishing the half-marathon in June, plantar fasciitis is the equivalent of getting a paper cut while reading your favorite book. Painful and annoying, but hardly worth throwing the book away. So, runners are not masochists and we don’t love pain. We’re much more like addicts, jonesing for our next finisher’s medal or runner’s high, and willing to stop at little to get it.
Learning to Bend
Posted: March 17, 2012 Filed under: Faith | Tags: faith, Lent, sacrifice 7 CommentsIn my early years of observing Lent, I was extremely strict with myself in regards to whatever sacrifice I happened to be making. There were no excuses, no loop holes, no skipping out on Sundays, no forgiveness, NO MERCY! It was go big or go home, all or nothing, perfection or despair. Although I was always very clear that I never expected anyone else to follow suit or live by my Lenten restrictions, what I have learned over time is being around that version of me is incredibly annoying for everyone else. Others were constantly having to adjust their lives to meet my needs. I found that by marching around and trumpeting my “look at me and my Lenten goodness” others felt compelled to accommodate me. Even if I didn’t ask or want them to, some simply did it because they wanted to be supportive in the way that friends and family often give their support to whatever whack-o thing you’re up to at any given moment. (And, forget Lent for a minute, I have quite a track record in taking up whack-o things…)
I like to think I have improved on this front, but I also know it’s an area where I still need work. Last year (where I gave up going out to eat), I thought I was being super clever for a work-related offsite event by offering to bring lunch and happy hour fixins. I learned later that the sandwiches that I brought were not on a colleague’s low carb diet, not to mention he had to make special arrangements with the location for me to bring my food, but he was gracious enough not to stand in my way. And I believe an element of this discipline is not to make a big fuss about what you are doing, so writing blog posts about the whole business probably doesn’t help my cause either.
Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. ~Matthew 6, verse 1
This year I decided to be more conscientious about not taking those around me through my personal journey of Lenten sacrifice. Okay, obviously writing this post invites people to go along the journey with me in some respects; so to clarify, I mean I am working hard not to inflict my offline, “real life,” Lenten choices on others. As far as my online presence goes, people can choose whether or not to read this post, or whether they even agree with my sentiments. Perhaps I really shouldn’t be writing about my experience with Lent – at least not on a blog, but that will have to be a struggle for another season.
What this really means is that I have to make a conscious choice to set aside perfect devotion to my sacrifice. Sometimes I have to live with my own inability to fulfill the commitment I have made. This past Friday we got together with friends we hadn’t seen in some months. Our usual tradition involves getting together for a meal and then watching a movie or catching up on the reality shows they know I like that are on cable, which we don’t have. I was very conflicted about how to handle this situation since I gave up TV for Lent. I initially suggested we get together on Sunday because there is a bit of a loophole with Lent on Sundays, but I actually keep to my discipline on Sundays, so I still would have felt like I was cheating in my heart. {As an aside, I do this because when I think of Jesus out in the wilderness for 40 days being tempted by Satan, I’m guessing he wasn’t taking Sundays off…} I considered telling them I had given up TV and movies for Lent, but it just felt like I would have been making them suffer for my choices which was exactly what I did not want to do. I also considered that perhaps I could have waited to see them until after Easter. In the end we did get together and we did watch TV – and, yes, I ‘inhaled’ – and, yes, I had mixed feelings about that. But one of the things I also learned was the reason why we hadn’t heard from them in so long. They had been experiencing some personal challenges on a couple of different fronts and we were able to listen to them, give them our empathy and show that we cared about what was going on in their life by our presence. Does that excuse my breaking my commitment not to watch TV? Honestly, no, and I have to live with my own disappointment about that. Am I glad we made the choice to go see them and not burden them with my TV-free life, absolutely.
The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. ~Confucius
The weather’s not so bad for running, or is it?
Posted: March 13, 2012 Filed under: Running, Team in Training | Tags: Half Marathon, Leukemia and Lymphoma, Running, Seattle Rock N Roll, Team in Training, Training 1 Comment
Tonight I carpooled to practice with a fellow Team in Training participant. As we inched onto the road to take us to Green Lake, traffic got slower and slower until we came to almost a dead standstill. Then we saw the sirens and lights, which pretty much guaranteed we were going to be late. As we sat there in the car, the weather got worse and worse. It started to rain, and then rain harder, and then a light snow started splattering the windshield. My car mate looked at me and said, “I am not running in that weather.” I tried to make light of it by saying the temperature wasn’t all that cold outside and given the traffic it might be gone by the time we got to practice anyway. But she would have none of it and said these conditions simply were not working for her. (She told me later that it was probably for the best that I was driving as she would have turned the car right on around and headed for home.) I told her that I hoped it would clear up as I wanted to get our run in whatever the weather or whether we were profoundly late (which was quickly becoming a certainty). We got the car parked and found the rest of the team doing laps on one of the hills and were given instructions to do some warm-up and then hit the hill. As we started out, the snow and wind was blowing directly into our faces and I thought my partner was going to pack it in right then and there, but she was a trooper and soldiered ahead.
Running hills is actually one of my favorite phases of the training season. It’s not that I’m any good at it. I huff and puff my way up and generally my face turns red from the effort. And we slow-pokes do not go any faster on the hills, so my usual slow jog becomes a true slog of snail-like proportions. But I am the little engine that could and snail speed or not, I chug my way up the hill each lap. I get supreme satisfaction from reaching the top of the hill and the steeper the hills become, the greater the satisfaction. Plus at the end of a hill-laced run I physically feel great. My blood is pumping, my legs feel strong – I am the queen of the universe. It’s also hard to be cold when you are expending so much energy. So, sitting there in the car on the way to practice, I was anxious to get there and excited to get started. It’s even ever so slightly possible that I was jabbering on and on (and on…) about how great it was as we inched our way there.
After we got warmed up and knocked the hills out, we walked back to the car and compared notes about how the run was for each of us, weather not withstanding. I mentioned that this was a cold run, but hardly the worst weather I had seen compared to other seasons or even to one of my personal runs this season (along the waterfront when the skies opened up and dumped literally buckets of water on me). She commented that she had never trained for a race before (of any length). She always ran just for fun or exercise, so if the weather was bad there was nothing pushing her to go anyway. Her experience with Team in Training was the first time she had to force herself to go run when any sane person would stay put. I had completely forgotten what it was like to do this for the first time. I was so used to putting up with any manner of crazy conditions and situations that I already knew tonight would not be so bad. I wanted to slap my hand to my forehead for being so dense. As usual, I made the classic mistake of assuming anyone else would have the same expectations or experiences that I have had. It’s easy to go run in the wet spring snow when you already know what it’s like. Far more impressive to get out there and run in those conditions when you have no idea how cold it will be, whether you have dressed warmly enough, whether you can get up hills you have never run before. So kudos to her on this dark and dreary night for running anyway.
If You Write Something on the Internet, People May Read It (But that doesn’t mean they’ll like it)
Posted: March 11, 2012 Filed under: Life's Observations | Tags: blogging, Social Media 8 Comments
I will confess when I started blogging I had plenty of moments where I dreamed of reaching the level of fame of bloggers such as Jenny Lawson of TheBloggess.com, where actors would climb all over each other to send me pictures of themselves with kitchen utensils (keep scrolling to see the pics). Or maybe I would be like Julie Powell, who blogged about Julia Child and then they made a movie out of it starring Meryl Streep. And, in my dreams, my zillions of followers would hang on my every word and shower me with accolades (hey, I said it was a dream).
I am hardly a prolific blogger. I wrote my first post in July 2010 and did not write another one until January 2011, but maintained a respectable 2-3 posts per month on average throughout that year. Prior to February 27 of this year, I was lucky if I had 30 people viewing any of my posts. I usually had no comments and those I did get were usually from my parents (thanks, Dad!). I wrote what I thought was an innocuous post that day about visiting churches. So, you can imagine my surprise when I checked my stats on March 8 and found over 7,000 people had viewed the post! And comments started rolling in. The next day over 16,000 peopled had viewed the post and by the end of this weekend over 36,000 people had viewed the post and it had 112 comments.
While hardly an internet explosion (I was never “trending” anywhere and I’m still waiting for those ‘theoretical internet dollars’ to show up…); for my small-time blog, it was pretty mind blowing. I think I was particularly surprised because it was the last thing I expected to go viral. It was not my most personal post, not the most controversial, and it wasn’t even a particularly spiritual post even though the subject was on church membership. It was in an easy to share, bulleted list, and clearly it did touch on a nerve of mainline churches grappling with bringing new members into their communities. My best guess is that it became one of those “someone told 2 people, who told 2 other people, who each told more people” which ultimately spread to 36,000 people. But, honestly, I have no idea how this thing took off like it did. I think that is one of the mysteries of social media – you just never know when you are going to hit one out of the park.
It was watching the comments roll in where I became less certain of how wonderful it was to write something even modestly popular. By and large, the majority of the comments were very positive and I am incredibly humbled and grateful that what I shared was of use to others. Of course there were some naysayers, one who said I was “extremely self centered” and another who said my tone was “obnoxious.” I have tried to keep all the comments in perspective, but it has honestly been hard to have my motives challenged so vocally. I know intellectually that these people don’t know me, but still that stings a little on the inside. What I wrote was a very practical view, in my opinion, on visiting a church. I did not say anything about the spiritual journey of discerning which faith community to join. It’s possible I have been self centered, but how could anyone know that from what I wrote? In fact, those 36,000 readers do not know anything about me at all. Out of that number, barely any of them looked at anything else on my blog. Only 374 even stopped to look at my “About” page, and an even smaller number read the posts I have written since then.
And I should point out that any number of the commenters came to my defense and argued with the naysayers, but at this point I noticed that the conversation was about me, not with me. It’s as if the comments took on a life of their own. My CEO, Kevin O’Keefe (a respected blogger in the legal community, and the person who got me into blogging in the first place) told me that I had created a community on that post and they now drove the dialog. Well, I gotta say, that’s a weird experience. I contemplated jumping into the fray and offering my own opinions, but I didn’t really see the point of trying to defend myself to people who don’t even know me. The people I do know and care about have been very supportive of my writing and they know the deeper meaning behind my words. As I told a couple of friends, the sincere compliments I have received from the people I know and respect have been the most meaningful for me.
So, what do I do with all this? I actually got some clarity in a post on a lawyer’s blog I read today (I read a lot of legal blogs for my job). Not really where I expected to find solace, but God does indeed work in mysterious ways… From the wisdom of Scott Greenfield who writes Simple Justice: A New York Criminal Defense blog in his post, Credit Where Due:
Just because you have a keyboard and an internet connection doesn’t mean your opinions are worthy of anyone else’s time and attention. Just because you breath doesn’t mean you exist. At least not to anyone else. No law, no call for civility, no heart-felt plea, is going to make you suddenly fascinating to the rest of the internet, so much so that you will be loved, admired and win every argument you decide to start.
On the internet, we’re all bullies. None of us, truth be told, loves humanity that much that we become best friends with everyone who twits at us, comments on our blawg, Facebook friends us or plusses our Google. We need to grow up and get over this.
We all pick and choose. Sometimes, we don’t choose you. And no one makes you choose me etiher. It’s not a crime.
His post is about anonymity and freedom of speech in the digital medium (and for lawyers specifically), but his comments resonated for me nonetheless. Writing this post did not make me any more or less fascinating than I already was and when I put my words out into the ether that is the internet, people have the right to feel, think, and say whatever they feel and think. Ironically, it’s actually not really any of my business to second guess their comments, bad or good, any more than I wanted anyone to second guess my motives. Or, as my old boss and mentor, Elaine, used to say to me, “what anyone else thinks of you is none of your business.” The experience was not what I expected, but those expectations were based on my wishful thinking, not on the reality of the situation and it’s time for me to put on my big girl pants and move on.
The sound of silence
Posted: March 9, 2012 Filed under: Faith | Tags: journeys, Lent, sacrifice 3 Comments
When I shared that I was giving up TV, Movies, Books, and Radio for Lent in Into the Lenten Wilderness, my friend Barb had this to say on Facebook:
I read the sentence twice thinking, surely she cannot mean books. The other things are evil, but not books! You go too far here.
At the time, I was far too distracted by how much withdrawal I was going through from my TV addiction to think about what giving up the other stuff was going to mean to me. But her comment stuck with me. Sacrifice is not about giving up stuff that’s bad for you (“evil things”), but rather things that are meaningful to you. I am a voracious reader and I love nothing more than losing myself in a book. The reason I decided to sacrifice books for Lent this year was because I spend all my time on the bus each day buried in the Kindle reader on my smart phone. So much so that I barely pay attention to anything else that is going on around me. On my morning commute this morning I noticed that the bus was stone cold silent. I looked around and everyone within eye shot was on some sort of digital device – phone, table, mp3 player. A couple of weeks ago I would have been one of them. And not only reading on my phone but listening to music on my mp3 player, which is why I decided to give up music too. For a short time I want to be more present to my surroundings.
As usual, I underestimated the impact of my choices. I thought giving up music was kind of a throw in and not that big of a deal. It wasn’t until I was sitting in church on Sunday and the music began to play that I felt the weight of that particular sacrifice. As we began to sing the hymn I could barely get through the words and was on the verge of tears. And what song brought me so emotionally to the edge? Ode to Joy. (Oh the irony…) I forgot that the songs I have selected on my mp3 player are not mere background noise. I picked music that either inspires me, touches me, or just plain makes me happy. They are my modern day odes to joy.
On the front end of this journey I wondered if I had made too strict a list, but now that I have adjusted to life without TV and to quiet bus rides, I began to question if I made it too easy on myself. Hearing a taste of music and feeling in my heart the pang of what I was missing let me know that I had indeed selected sacrifices that are full of meaning and it’s these little discoveries along the way that draw me back to the Lenten discipline year after year. Sometimes you have to turn off the volume to truly hear.
Running Daydreams
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: Running, Team in Training | Tags: Half Marathon, Running, Seattle Rock N Roll, Training 1 Comment
Team in Training asks that we do not wear headphones during our training runs. A lot of folks find it difficult, if not impossible, to run without some kind of musical distraction. Fortunately, I have always run without headphones or music, so it’s not a problem for me. Although I definitely wear them on the treadmill (treadmills are of the devil and music or TV is the only thing that makes them remotely tolerable), I find that wearing headphones when running outside leaves me too disconnected from what’s going on around me. And when I run along the waterfront from my office in downtown Seattle, there are too many countless opportunities to be mowed down to not be fully aware of my surroundings. Methods of potential maiming include; trains, cars, buses, cyclists, pedicabs, segways (it is Seattle), skateboards, roller blades, and perhaps the most dangerous of all – TOURISTS and COMMUTERS.
That being said, I do run the risk of getting a little bored if I don’t have some sort of mental activity to keep my brain stimulated as my body slogs along. Way back when I first started running, I used to sing to myself as I went up the one long, steep hill in our neighborhood. Unfortunately, the only song I know all the words by heart is the 12 Days of Christmas. But on the upside I did find I could track my progress by the number of “days” it took me to get up the hill.
For the course from my office, I created a little narrative to carry me down the waterfront. From the gym, I head out to the parking lot at Pier 48, there I pick up my theoretical car and take it with me down to the Ferry Terminal, where I send it across the Puget Sound. Then I decide I am theoretically hungry so I run to Ivars Acres of Clams for a little make-believe snack. From there I decide I should go check out the Seattle Aquarium and I run down there. After cruising the aquarium, I think I might like to have a party. A huge party that will take an entire PIER to hold everyone. So I run on down to Pier 62/63 to check that out. Then I think my party will probably want more adventure, so I head over to the Cruise Ship Terminal. But then I think I’m getting tired of all that partying and decide to run to the Edgewater Hotel to see about a nap. At that I point I think to myself, “hey, I have a day job, I better get on back” and I turn around.
The return trip has a little bit of a different bent. My mind returns to that classic animated Sesame Street episode where the kid gets lost on his bike. If you haven’t seen it, this bizarro character (seriously, someone over at the Children’s Television Network had to be taking some serious drugs when they made that thing) tells him to remember all the landmarks he passed along the way and just go through them backwards to find his way home. So, I replay all the landmarks I passed on the way in reverse and suddenly I’m back at the gym and the run is done.
I suppose that’s a goofy way to get through a run and I probably risk revealing too much of my inner weirdness by sharing this, but surely I’m not the first or only person in the history of running to employ some unorthodox practices to get them through their runs…
**UPDATE**
I found this Dr. Seuss quote that seems to better justify my techniques…
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living; it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”
Resting is Hard Work
Posted: February 28, 2012 Filed under: Running, Team in Training | Tags: Half Marathon, rest days, Running, Team in Training, Training, work-life balance 1 CommentMy training schedule calls for two “rest” days a week, on Mondays and Fridays. On these days we are supposed to limit the time on our feet, which means no cross training, no nothing. Relax, enjoy life; you know, rest. I am pretty faithful to keeping my Monday nights clear, but I’m lucky if I have even a fifty-fifty success rate for resting on Fridays. I get so busy, I can never seem to get all my runs in on the other five days. Which is not to say I inadvertently rested on a Wednesday, instead of on a Friday, but rather that I ran with the team on Tuesday, worked out with my trainer on Wednesday, walked two-plus miles home from work on Thursday, and all the sudden I’m out of days and I need to get one more run in for the week. There is something fundamentally messed up at being too busy to make time to do nothing.
I intellectually know that resting is an extremely important part of training (per the Team in Training guidelines, “Recovery days are mandatory!”). When we stop to rest, we let our bodies heal and are just that much stronger for it. I can think of countless times when the run after a rest day is particularly good. That should be evidence enough that it’s a good idea. But I think there is a the nagging feeling that chases many runners that if you stop and rest you wont start again. After all Sir Isaac Newton even came up with a LAW regarding being at rest:
A body that is at rest will stay at rest ~Newton’s First law of motion
But, then again, the guy came up with the theory of gravity laying around watching apples fall on his head, so I’m guessing he was not much of a distance runner.
Our bodies are actually very ingenious at getting what they need and they will take a rest day (or two, or ten) for you if you don’t take them proactively. Don’t take time off your feet and you are more likely to get sick (there goes three days of training). Ignore the need for healing and you are more likely to get injured (there goes three weeks of training). I would know, I’ve experienced both.
The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it. ~Sydney J. Harris
So, this season I’m working hard at taking my rest and relaxation seriously. My Mondays are, in fact, sacred, so I can count on getting at least one rest day each week. I have also reminded myself that nothing bad happens if you only run four days one week. And stopping to take a break now and then is not just good for running. How many times have any of us been banging our head against the wall trying to solve a problem and when we finally let go of forcing ideas, the solution presents itself to us as is by magic.
Don’t just do something, sit there. ~Buddhist Quote
I was walking home from the local grocery store a few years ago which included walking up a short, but steep, hill. A woman was about half a block ahead of me with two extremely full grocery sacks. It was obvious that her arms were heavy as she hauled them up the hill. About two-thirds of the way up she stopped in her tracks. I thought, naturally, it was because the bags were heavy, but she did not even set them down. Instead, she leaned over, planted her nose in a rose that was in full bloom along the sidewalk and took a huge deep breath and then went on along her way. You could have hit me over the head with a frying pan I was so shocked to see a real person actually stop and smell the roses. But the truth is if you don’t stop once in awhile and take in a big, deep breath, you will miss all the flowers.
See Lyda Run 