Rest, Recovery, and Easy Days: It's More Than Just Physical

Recently I have come to a whole new appreciation for rest and recovery days. I am on day 85 of a running streak that I started a while back to help add some consistency to my training. When doing a streak, one learns to really appreciate the rest and recovery days in a whole new way. To keep the streak from becoming too much like a chore, the easy days are critically important, not just from a physical standpoint but from a mental one as well.

Let's face it. Most runners, if not Type-A personalities, are at the very least extremely goal-oriented. Once one starts running regularly, and especially when one sets a specific time or pace goal, such as running that first 5k, half marathon, or marathon or setting a PR at any of those distances, running becomes about the training plan. It becomes bogged down in miles per day, miles per week, and paces. In the midst of all this, it is quite easy to lose the joy of the activity.

Easy days and recovery days often become just another set of miles to be ticked off on the schedule. Often they are run at a pace faster than they should be because there is a desire to just get them over with. Sometimes they are dismissed out of hand and replaced with cross training. To do so, though, is to miss the wonderful opportunity that these days represent.

In one of my favorite books by Thomas Moore called the The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life, Moore argues that in modern society we have become so analytical and scientific in our society that we miss the magical and the awe-inspiring in our daily lives and that this point-of-view does nothing to nourish our souls. He advocates opening the mind to the enchanting and awe-inspiring in daily life by paying more close attention to the magical in the things around us.

This message can apply to our running. Recovery days and easy days are an opportunity to put aside worries about time and distance and appreciate the wonder in our surroundings or even the wonder of our own bodies moving across the ground. Many use easy or recovery days as the time to socialize with fellow runners. This can be a wonderful activity that nourishes the mind and soul, but there is something to be said about the solitary and reflective runs, as well. Wonderful opportunities exist if one just is open to them.

For me the place I turn for these mental and spiritual recovery days is almost always the trails. I appreciate the soft surface that the trails give me from the physical recovery standpoint, but it is the mental/spiritual aspect that I have been appreciating a lot more lately. That is not to say that one must get to the trails to be mentally and spiritually refreshed by a run. I have had some wonderfully magical runs through neighborhoods appreciating the architecture or the landscaping. It does not necessarily take a lot of special planning, but it does take the willingness to open one's mind and one's eyes to an appreciation of the magic wherever one finds oneself -- as Scott Jurek said in a recent article just being alive and appreciating the moment.

I have discovered a gem of a spot for my recovery runs. It is a little known park, at least for runners. It is populated mostly by walkers, many with their puppies in tow, which is fine with me. It has a  little of everything: paved trails, grassy trails, packed dirt, a lake, wildlife, and wildflowers.

I had run there several times before I began to appreciate it as more than just a flat, soft surface. What really helped open my eyes was that recently, after my two very grueling trail races at Keyes Peak 

and Dances with Dirt, I was just physically too wiped out to go fast. I was forced to slow down to almost a walk, and this gave me plenty of time to look around. I was amazed at all the things I had been missing and how much there was there to "enchant" someone who took the time to look.

A second experience that drove this home was a recent run I had with my friend Kate on this trail. It was her first time.  It was also raining and almost dark. We had the most amazing run, complete with herds of deer, scampering bunnies, and some very aggressive little frogs. It was really magical. It did way more for my soul than it did for the body.

So, the next time you are feeling that your running schedule has become too much, too repetitive, too uninspired, try making a switch to your attitude on your easy days or recovery runs. Find a place that will nourish your mind and your spirit and run there. Leave your watch at home if you can. It will do a lot to infuse joy back into your running.

To get you motivated, I am including a video of my Hawk Meadow run. (Note: If what you see there are just a bunch of trees, some weeds, and some garden pests destroying someone's field, then your mind and spirit may indeed need some serious re-enchantment.)





Do you have a run that enchants you? I would love to hear where you like to run when you need a mental or spiritual boost.

Related Posts:

Running Streaks: How long can you go?

Related Video:

Fall Running in Michigan: From Hawk Island toward MSU

Map to Hawk Meadow:

March Running Madness Coming To An End

My March running trip is coming to an end, and we are heading back to Michigan. It did not go as well as I hoped with the DWD Green Swamp race, but I did manage to do some awesome trail runs in Kentucky, Alabama, Florida, and now Georgia.

Wednesday night we did a stopover in Reed Bingham State Park in Southern Georgia. They have several short nature trails there (less than a mile each), so I did not expect much of a run. However, the trails intersect in a way that allows for a pretty decent short run. I actually enjoyed the run quite a bit. It was cooler and greener than the runs in Florida, with more flowers along the trail, but it still had the same swampy look to the trail in the wetland areas, with bald cypress and Spanish moss hanging from the trees along the waterway. The area was full of birds, but unfortunately none of them would sign the consent form to appear in the video.

For those of you who can't make it to Georgia this spring, here is the video of the trails at Reed Bingham State Park:

Trail Running O'Leno State Park: A Pleasant Surprise

We are on the move again, heading to South Florida for Dances With Dirt Green Swamp. We stopped at one of the lesser known state parks along the way for an overnight, and I found some fun trails.

The park was O'Leno State Park, which is not too far off the 75, just north of Gainesville. We chose this park, not for its amenities but because it was halfway between where we were and where we needed to be. Our expectations were not high. We were just looking for a place to pull in for the night. It turns out that it was a really serendipitous choice, as it was a beautiful park with a system of easily accessible trails that made it perfect for a little run to shake out the kinks in my pre-DWD taper.

The trail system includes hiking and mountain bike trails. There is a river, the Sante Fe, in the park, with a suspension bridge built by the CCC in 1938. The trails are typical Florida, packed sand with stubborn grass poking through in spots, nice and soft to trot along on. The trails were wide and well cleared, which is great because I am still having allergic reactions to the things I got into on my first ill-fated trail run in North Florida.

There are several trails in the park, all of which begin just east of the suspension bridge, which is a major landmark. The one I did today was the green one, called the Parener's Branch, which is listed as 3.69 mi. The green loop allows both mountain bike and hiking, but connects into the yellow trail to complete the loop back to the bridge, which is hiking only, so I am not sure if that mileage is for only the green portion or whether it also includes the yellow section that competes the loop. I also ran the entire yellow loop (video coming) which is 1.44 mi  and is for hiking only. There are additional trails in the system, Sweetwater (1.87 mi) and River Rise (4.25 mi), so one could put together a decently long run if connecting trails. I did not see a lot of wildlife, but there were a few extremely skittish deer, some baby alligators, and many butterflies.

In talking to some wonderful ladies on the camp staff (one of whom was from Ann Arbor), I found out that I had just missed their annual Race The Tortoise 5k held in the park on March 3 this year. I was kind of bummed about that. I mean who doesn't need a race shirt with a tortoise running across a suspension bridge?

Anyway, I thought I would share the experience with you all just to put you in a Green Swamp state of mind: