Newton!

This past summer, watching le Tour, I was always amused when the cyclists would gripe about having to take two rest days among the grueling, 20-day competition. One would think, after being in a saddle for four or more hours daily, climbing hills and sprinting to finish lines, that 24 hours of scheduled rest would provide welcome relief for the body and mind, and that any sane rider would spend the time off of his feet, getting a massage, and generally trying to do as little as possible. In fact, though, very few of the cyclists rest at all on the designated days, opting instead to go for a long (albeit easier) ride; they claim that even a single day of inactivity results in decreased performance when the competition resumes.

I could never understand this. In all of my marathon training plans, I’ve been told to take one, if not two, rest days per week, and that one day of complete inactivity is absolutely essential to allow muscles to repair and rebuild. Either the riders in le Tour are a different breed altogether (probably true), or they were simply lying (they've been known to do that, too). But today I was humbled to experience the perils of rest.

I have not had a day off from riding or biking in 23 days. Granted, some runs have only been 30-40 minutes long, which is nothing compared to a five hour ride, but I’ve been working out with some regularity since (and including) our time in Spain. Yesterday morning, however, I had a scheduled medical test that required an overnight fast, and I knew there was no way I’d be able to exercise in the morning without coffee and yogurt in my system. I therefore skipped the usual run or ride (which turned out to be fortuitous timing since the rain was coming down in hard sheets, anyway). Today, however, it was business as usual, and though it was again raining hard and I was exceptionally tired, I got out of bed, hopeful that, within 30 minutes, the skies might dry up while I might perk up.

I ended up running just under six miles this morning in warm, muggy weather, and only the occasional spit of rain with which to contend. But this run felt horrible! For the last few weekends, I have been running 10 or 11 miles in one go -- sandwiched between days of 30 mile bike rides and five mile runs -- and I have felt ten times more energized than I did at 6:30 am today. I have contended with fewer hours of sleep and warmer weather and still managed to run easier than I did this morning. Yes, today’s run was a struggle from start to finish -- heavy legs, slow climbs up hills, and the feeling of just wanting it all to be over. (The only saving grace was that I forgot my watch at home, so I wasn’t able to track just how slowly I was moving.) And although I did feel better and eventually more energetic for having completed the run, this morning I was certain that I had lost three weeks worth of fitness overnight.

It seems that Newton had it right all along: a body in motion really does want to stay in motion, and a body at rest quickly becomes, well, lazy. I may never be able to compete like the boys of le Tour, but today, I felt their pain.