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Take a Well-Earned Rest

Put your competitive nature on pause and take time to recover from hard times

What does it mean to take a break from life's activities and really rest? I'm asking because almost everyone I know seems to be confused about it. In my circle of friends are several go-getter runners whom I tend to compare myself with on a regular basis. My own husband, Bill, is among these type A sorts who are back out on the trail one or two days after a long, hard race.

A few weeks ago, Bill and I traveled from the Northwest down to Arizona to spend some time with his mother, who lives in the Phoenix area. Since we always try to find a run or race to join whenever we travel, we located an eighteen-mile trail run that sounded fun a couple of hours away from his mom's house, got up early one morning, and let our GPS lead us to a hilly trailhead out beyond a (very, very) little town called Sunflower.

I was trained up to eighteen miles and enjoy trail running, although I would never claim to be particularly surefooted or to have an innate sense of direction, so I was looking forward to trying out the desert mountain terrain—something different from Washington's soft dirt and forested trails. I'm always game for a new experience. Why not?

Unfortunately, once we got a few miles into the run and hit the most rugged part of the course I understood that my training was much less useful to me than surefootedness or a good sense of direction would be.

Long story short, I both fell AND got lost out in the desert—surrounded by fresh bear scat which seemed to be strategically placed everywhere I looked just especially to freak me out.

When I finally made it back to the start/finish area (5 hours and 20 minutes after starting), I was as sore and worn out as I'd ever been after a full marathon. One ankle was bruised. Both legs were badly scratched up from running through brush. And I was shaken up by the half hour I'd spent lost trying to make my way back to the marked trail. I felt a sense of accomplishment, to be sure, but I also knew I was going to need a little time to recover.

That night I iced my body and popped acetaminophen. Then, the next day, I managed a slow walk around the block and a little stretching. The day after that, when I still hurt, I made up my mind to wait to run again until the pain went away…. that is, until I watched Bill suit up on that second day and head out for a "short recovery run."

Ah, the power of comparison! You cannot believe the shame and self-criticism I hurled at myself as he walked out the door for his run without me and I stayed on the sofa with my book. Every fiber of my competitive self wanted to show someone that I was as tough a runner as my husband.

But who did I want to show? Bill? He didn't care if I rested. In fact, he preferred that I recover fully rather than risk injury. Was I wanting to prove something to myself? But what? That I could push through any pain even if I ended up hurting more than was necessary? Do you get extra points in heaven for that? I doubt it.

I sat with my self-loathing and waited it out (most feelings do dissipate if you hold still and let them be). In a half an hour, when I got off the couch to get myself a glass of water and felt the surge of pain shoot through my sore muscles, I patted myself on the back for making the right choice to take my recovery slow and easy.

Let's reflect for a moment on resting and why we do or don't rest when we know we need to. Let's ask ourselves what we are trying to prove and to whom, shall we? When you clearly need to slow down and sit still—because your body, mind, or soul requires it—why do you push through? What would it mean about you if you just took a breather and stopped trying to be so tough? Are you operating with a false belief that your worth as a person is based on how much you accomplish or who you finish in front of? Do you think that the world will crumble around you if you don't push yourself to the brink just to hold things together?

I don't know about you, but I've never been sorry for taking time to recover—from a run, from my divorce years ago, or even from a hard conversation with a friend or a really long day at work. Let's give ourselves a break, trust that we won't lose ground if we take care of ourselves, sit down on the couch for a few days (or even an hour if that's all you can spare during this busy season) and let time heal us.

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