Email time again
Recently, a sweet reader asked:
Hi Katie! I just found your blog and read through your whole FAQ Page! Thanks for the source of procrastination from my homework! And it was so well-written and thorough too. I really enjoyed reading it. But I noticed you wrote that you don’t run ever day, only like 5 times week. I was wondering if you feel guilty on days off? I always feel like I should be doing something on my rest days, even though I’ve heard that it’s better for your body to not run every single day and you’ll actually get faster if you give yourself rest days. I was wondering what you thought about this? Do you ever feel bad about not running every day?
I don’t feel guilty about rest days from running, although I do sometimes have to force myself to take them (especially if it’s beautiful outside!). One of the reasons I run is to be healthy, so if I did run every day, I wouldn’t feel healthy. I feel healthy knowing I’m giving my body the rest it needs. Plus, if I ran every single day without ever taking a break, running might start feeling like a chore (burnout) instead of something I look forward to doing. It’s like holidays: if every day were a holiday, they might start to lose their appeal. When I force myself to take a day off from running, it only makes me that much more excited for the next day, when I can get back out there!
I run because I love it. If you loved to paint, for example, but missed it one day because you didn’t have time or didn’t feel like doing it, would you feel guilty for not painting that day? Of course not. You’d feel sad, maybe, but not guilty. And some people might not agree with me (everyone’s entitled to his/her own opinion!), but I wholeheartedly believe that rest days are crucial for achieving top performance and staving off injury.
If you over-train, you put yourself at high risk for injuries that could end up sidelining you for much more than a rest day (as I almost found out the hard way).
With rest, your muscles and energy stores get a chance to repair and rebuild, helping you to become faster and stronger. So take those rest days, girl! And feel good about yourself, knowing that you’re truly taking care of your body.
Molly’s a fan of rest days too!
(She might like rest a little too much) 😉
Tommy luca says
I like running very much.I have recently started running. Right now, I’m going every second day, giving my body a rest and working up to longer times and more frequency. For the first time EVER, I am actually enjoying running and am thinking about making it part of my daily routine.
Marianne says
I would say I very rarely feel guilty about things. I might wish things had occurred differently, but the feelings aren’t guilt. Life is too short to worry about missing a day of exercise of whether you had an extra piece of chocolate. It’s all about how things play out in the long run, and not micromanaging down to the second.
Melissa says
Heck, I think 5 days a week running is a bit much, honestly. I’m training for my first half marathon and I only do three days a week. I do 5-6 miles 2x a week and then my LSD run where I’m building mileage to the 13-15 mile range.
After my LSD, my legs are SHOT and I can’t even imagine running. I can’t do plyometrics or any real bouncy cardio, either. I just finished my first 11 miler yesterday and had to do strength for my upper body and some ab work today instead of Tae Bo or circuit training with Jillian ’cause my legs are done in!
Ideally, I’d like to get to where I’m running 4X a week but since I’ve had a buttload of injuries in the time I’ve been a runner (less than a year! And I’ve had all the big running injuries it seems – plantar fasciitis, groin pull, IBS, stress fracture – I suck at building mileage moderately, apparently!) I am a bit gunshy to do more than my 3x a week plus 3 days strength and/or cross training cardio. I also just got done with a big weight loss (50lbs in about 10 months) and am trying to not swing into overtraining due to getting weird about food and burning calories.
Loving the blog so far and really looking forward to making some babies (of the eatable variety!) – they sound like a great post run snack! I tend to bonk hard after the LSD since I don’t plan ahead well enough to bring food to the gym. My plan of eating a dried apricot ever 3 miles hasn’t been sufficient as of late. Hrm.
Tricia says
I used to run six days a week, and i quickly realized that that was too much lol. So now i just run with the team, and if i feel that i haven’t had enough practice in with the team (ex. i miss a practice or something), i’ll just run on my own. Four to five times a week seems to be perfect for me because the last time i was running too much and i got super bad shin splints 🙁
trajayjay says
I think i have a huge problem with guilt
I feel guilty if i over/undereat a certain food (or just food in general)
I feel guilty if I don’t run at my top performance (I also run but I usually do 2-3 mi at a time with rest days)
I feel guilty if I try really hard on a test but I get a B or lower than an A-
I feel guilty when I can’t concentrate on my homework
I feel guilty when someone is mad at me
I feel guilty when I don’t exercise enough
Linda says
Love your recipes but it appears I am unable to print some of them since there is no way to just print the recipe. Am I doing something wrong?