Day 20-Rest

 I’ve mentioned renewal and recharging in previous posts.  Refreshing my mind and spirit is a priority, but I often I forget to rest my body.

Do you ever pretend that you aren’t getting sick?  I do that.  I feel the symptoms coming on and think, “No, I can overcome this!”  It doesn’t always work for me.

Katy has been battling a bit of a cold this week and yesterday, I started coughing.  Not too much, so I thought, “No problem!”

After a morning errand, I went on my run.  I’ve been eyeing a particularly challenging part of the trail that I haven’t explored yet.  I’m not sure what the mileage is.  My estimate would be between 8 and 10 miles.  It would make it the longest distance that I’ve gone.

I needed a run.  It was another long week at work.  Renewal was important.  Twenty feet into my run, I started to get a cramp.  I had a long road ahead of me.  Every once and a while, I get these and keep going. 

This incoming cold mixed with the cramp made me doubt the entire run.  I got to the half mile mark and thought about turning around.  In the end, I ran 7 miles.  I looked longingly at the mountain that I wanted to climb.  And then nearly fell on my face.  On a trail run, you really can’t run and look longingly at anything but the trail in front of you.  At least I can’t.

I got home, feeling pretty satisfied that I still accomplished a long run, when the cold symptoms intensified.  My body was telling me “enough.”

I stocked up on Emergen-C and tea at the store and made soup for dinner.  I hope my family isn’t getting tired of soup.  I’ve been making a different kind every time, but we have it a couple times a week.  What can I say, it’s a celebration of the cooler weather.  And now I don’t feel good and soup sounded so good.  It was so good, by the way.

I had to let go of my other to-dos.  I’m feeling a little twitchy from not accomplishing everything today.  But that could be chills from this cold, too.

Sometimes I have to stop.  Sometimes I need rest.  And soup.  And hot tea.  And my coffee pjs.

 

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