The coveted rest week - rest to get faster and stronger

Ahhhh..i made it - time to rest.  For the whole week, i don't have to think about miles, minutes, pace, or anything related to training.  This week is about recouping, recharging, and like my acupuncturist says, restore my chi :)

Taking a much need rest after the Catalina Gran Fondo.

Intense training and racing takes its toll.

• The physical & mental energy required for race day performance and focused intensity.  
• Physical energy for those hard training days that you push yourself past your limits.  
• Time and energy to plan your rides and training off your bike.  And then the energy to take care of life's necessities like cleaning, cooking, kids, or life's emergencies after a hard ride. 
• Physical & mental energy to start a ride or workout when your body feels exhausted from yesterday's activities.  
• And the emotional energy.  Maybe it's because i'm a girl and i can be more sensitive then my male counterparts, but i know that when I've been putting my body under continuous stress, i am not able to handle emotional situations as gracefully.  

Honestly i would make myself push through all this stuff and keep going.  The real reason why I started to incorporate rest week was due to the fact that I would get sick...all the time. Mostly upper respiratory infections - in two years i got pneumonia twice!!  After the second bout of pneumonia, I threw the towel in to figure out what was going on.

As a coach, i should know better than to not give my body rest.  But as an athlete, it is hard to stop training.  i had to come to terms with the science and give myself the needed rest WEEK.  It's been about a year and a half since i started to incorporate the coveted rest week and i've been sick only once in that time. 

How it works - train, intense hard for 5-7 weeks (varies from athlete to the next) and then take a WHOLE week to do whatever the heck I want.  here are a few do's and don'ts for your rest week:

• DON'T put too many rules.  do whatever you want without any judgement.
• DO schedule a massage or acupuncture or some type of bodywork to help with muscle and tissue rejuvenation.  I try to do more yoga during my rest weeks.
• DO try to get fresh air and get a little sweat. Do something you don't normally have time for.
• DO try to do more with the ones you love - Sit and watch movies with my children.
• DON'T worry that your friends are riding or the such.

Then when it's time to get back on the bike and start training, you will be able to give more then you did before your rest week.  It's in the science - train hard (overload principle) and then recovery to rejuvenate and repair.   I've also noticed that I'm don't get burn out like i have in the past.

Tomorrow?  Time to go to Big Bear for some racing..yea!!!  Rest week is about to end and i'm like a race horse hungry to ride fast.

Train hard, rest even harder

chi

here are few articles reinforcing how your performance improves when you incorporate a rest week. 

http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2012/06/recovery-week-design.html 

http://cyclingtips.com/2008/11/rest-periods/

http://breakingmuscle.com/cycling/how-your-recovery-relates-directly-to-your-performance