To achieve top performance, you must have rest in all things.
When training for a marathon or ultra-marathon,
you never run more than 4-5 days per week.
The other 2 or 3 days are rest days.
Critical to your training are the days of rest.
Without them, your body cannot leverage the strength and endurance gains.
Your body needs time to catch up to the strides you are making.
To bring them into it's tissues and structures.
To internalize them. To make the strides part of it.
After my weekend long run, I would nap long that day. And the next.
Ryan Hall, the famous marathoner, kept a daily one-hour post-run nap in his training regime for the days he ran. He considered it just as important as the run itself.
Consider how we are pushing ourselves in these world-turned-upside-down days...
Can you see that we may need more rest lately?
All things must be in balance. That is The Way, The Tao.
HT Linda Westenberg