Rest days

cheshirecatastrophe

Hi, all! What is your rest day strategy? Sit on your butt, strength train, yoga, walk, swim?

I have trouble sticking with a TOTAL rest day, even though I know how important it is, and would also love to hear some strategies for dealing with it psychologically.

litsy3

I just treat mine as a day when I don't do any running, but I usually still cycle to work and back because that's how I get there.

dougii

Ditto litsy3. Rest for me is a non running day. On rest days I may lift weights, walk, or do other things that are non-running calorie burners. Every so often I take a full rest day and do no planned exercise (I don't count walking as planned exercise so I always walk and shoot for 10,000 steps a day).

Carrieendar

this training cycle I will do one rest day from running a week; however, my plan has me doing plyo that day. So it's not a full rest day. After Boston, I will go back to a full rest day (or two) a week.

I do have two recovery run days, which are a lot slower and less volume than other days.

lporter229

Rest days for me are either yoga and a walk or cycling. Very rarely do I have a "do nothing" day, unless I am sick. Yoga is an important part of staying injury free for me.

ka97

I have running days, and lifting days, and cross training days. I don't often have a "rest" day. When I do it means no planned exercise, though not necessarily no activity.

brandiuntz

The only thing I consider a rest day is a "no exercise" day. I usually have one a week and simply have something else planned socially.

vcphil

I haven't taken a rest day in over 200 days. I view my "easy" & low mileage days Kinda like rest days. Listen to your body. If you want to cross train- do that. If you want to sit or lay down all day- do that lol. Do what fees right :-)

cheshirecatastrophe

Of course there is no consensus. I might try to go back to keeping one swim day easy enough to qualify as rest. (Basically like walking for me.) Thanks, everyone!

blgerig

Depends on the week... sometimes my rest day is a light yoga day or a cross training day, or sometimes I feel like sleeping in (cough, today) and take a day off. As long as you are listening to your body and feel good you don't have to do nothing on your rest day!