Rest madness?

Taper madness is nothing compared to rest madness.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy resting.  A lot. And I know that I need to do it. My muscles are all telling me so. Very insistently. But … argh!

I was filling out a Daily Plate day for a presentation that I’m making tomorrow and I was shocked and disappointed to learn that I only had 453 calories left for the day (on maintenance!) after a big bowl of cereal for breakfast and a footlong sandwich for lunch.

At least with tapering, its towards a goal. You know that you’re doing this because you are going to rock your peak performance on race day. But with resting … my goal is over. I did it.

Albeit soggily.

Now I’m just sitting around, eating way more calories than I’m burning with no big event to carbo-load for …

So, I did what any sane person would do in forced rest. I signed up for another race.

It’s the All Women & One Lucky Guy half marathon in Newburyport, MA on Nov. 6 — 4 weeks away from now, which should give me plenty of time to rest and build back up to the half marathon distance.

I posted my blog to Runnit yesterday (hi, Reddit!) and I got a lot of really sweet, nice responses, one of more frequent ones being — how do you stay motivated to keep running? And in my experience, you stay motivated always having the next goal in mind. Now that my next goal is something more nebulous … to get “better” at the half and full marathon distance … I feel vulnerable. It’s easy to just give up, say that I crossed running a marathon off my bucket list, and be happy with that.

So the other thing I do is write a blog and make myself accountable to you guys. Hello, blog readers!

I’m giving a presentation tomorrow about using technology to help you stay fit. Wish me luck!

Pattie Reaves

About Pattie Reaves

I'm a new mom and renegade fitness blogger at After the Couch. I live in Brewer with my husband, Tony, our daughter Felicity, and our two pugs, Georgia and Scoop.