It’s 5:10 am right now. I am trying something new to treat my RDB (rest day blues) which in my home-based clinical studies is characterized by the following symptoms. If you display 2 or more of these symptoms on even one rest day you might be suffering from RBD:
- Feeling “unproductive” on a rest day even though the runner knows rest IS productive
- A feeling of “sluggishness” that makes it hard to do anything but sit or lie down all day
- Runner wonders how he/she will run 10 miles the following day if he/she is this exhausted watching TV
- “Running amnesia” i.e. the runner forgets that he/she is a person who runs frequently and likes running
- Desire to wear running clothes even though runner will not run a step all day
- Irritability characterized by snapping at spouse when spouse asks runner if he/she ran today “IT”S MY REST DAY!”
- Lack of enthusiasm for taking a shower
- A feeling of “incompletion” as described by the runner
- Desire to eat junkier food than on a running day
- Mood is suppressed i.e. no runner’s high
My thoughts were that if I use the time that I am normally running to do something else instead of tossing and turning in bed, I might trick my mind into busting out of the RDB since I would still be on a “running schedule”, just with blogging replacing running. It’s still unclear how much of the RDB is emotional versus biological (exercise addiction anyone?) since it is difficult to control for variables in the environment and social calendar. For example, a rest day falling on a rainy Monday with one child home sick might lend itself to more RDB than a Saturday rest day filled with activities and maybe even some booze thrown in. You guys do know I’m mainly just trying to be funny right? I know it didn’t work so well, but it made me smile, and after all we are focusing on ME and MY RDB. I will report results of the treatment at some random point in the future, if I remember.
Moving on now to my training summary, this is what I’ve done for the week as well as what I have planned for the weekend:
Monday: 6 miles easy (recovery after 10k), 9:10 avg pace (1st half 9:25 second half 8:50ish)
Tuesday: Tempo run: 1 miles warmup 9:25, 4 miles at tempo pace (tried for 7:30 but did 7:35-40 for each mile), 1 mile cooldown 8:30
Wednesday: 6 miles easy, 8:51 avg pace
Thursday: 7 miles total: Miles 1-2 uphill 9:30 pace, 3-5 flat 8:30 pace with 4 pickups at 6:50 pace, miles 6-7 downhill 7:40 pace
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 10 mile progression run: 1-3 8:50 avg; 4-7 8:30 avg; 8-10 8:00 avg. Love to finish fast.
Sunday: 5 Miles easy
My weekend runs are usually the ones I look forward to the most, especially if I’m not marathon training and dreading an 18 miler. 10 miles is my favorite distance and the best thing about this time between marathons is being able to run a 10 miler every week as my “long” run.
Random hello from this little guy.
Finally, I just received my new Garmin forerunner 110 with HRM and wanted to share a few links related to tracking heart rate while training. I plan to mainly use it to make sure my easy training days are truly easy and what my general range is across different types of training. It’s something new to me so figured I’d throw in some info.
General summary of benefits and limitations
Three common mistakes monitoring HR
The pros of heart rate training
“Chronic Cardio” and how heart rate plays in (This is not a viewpoint popular with runners but thought I’d throw it in anyway)
Overview of benefits and how to use
So now a few questions for you:
Do you get RDB? If so, how do you boost your mood on these low energy days? Also, have you ever monitored heart rate while running and what were your thoughts on it?
Don’t tell me this isn’t a real syndrome because it is! I think this is part of why post-marathon week is wicked hard for me. I know that even though it wasn’t a race-race, I still need to recover before running all the miles again, but it definitely gets to me mentally. Luckily I have loads of work to do, so I’m going to distract myself that way today…
I find distraction to be the best way to deal with that sluggish, down feeling. I’m sure a lot of us get the rdb and I really think it’s just part of the running lifestyle. Post marathon/long run is the worst!
Ha this definitely made me smile! I can totally relate to RDB:) I actually did a post a few months ago about how hard it is for me to take a rest day. Have a great weekend!
I used to avoid it by doing an an easy run on “rest” days and sometimes only resting completely 1x month. That was unhealthy and dangerous at least for me and I payed the price. Silly things runners do. Have a great weekend 🙂
Yes. I usually go bonkers. What helps me is to engage in other sports like swimming and basketball. Right now I believe I have achilles tendonitis and not being able to move around is driving me bananas!
Tendonitis is rough! Have you gotten it checked out? I had posterior tibial tendonitis which is from the top of the inner ankle bone down to the arch of the foot. The pain and swelling were so persistent. I know I need to take rest seriously now no matter how blah I feel! Swimming is great and I just recently learned about pool running too. On my rest days now I do absolutely nothing though to get the best results 🙂
I haven’t. I’ve been resting it for the past two weeks and I am about to start getting massages. It doesn’t hurt when I walk anymore but I definitely cannot run. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.
Not sure I have the advice you want…I had to stop running for several weeks and it took months to fully recover. I would ice as much as possible, stay off of it whenever possible and get sports orthotics to wear in solid supportive shoes whenever you can. The shoes I wear now are much more supportive than I ever thought I’d need but it’s worth it to avoid injury.
so, i think this is the first time since i started reading your blog when we are not twinsies. i LOVE my rest days. i mean, i probably get in a foul mood more easily, but i think that my natural state is a lazy couch potato….and letting myself give in to that once a week (at least) is pretty magical. actually, if i did it more i’d probably hate it…but having the one day off is like summer vacation 🙂
Good for you! Rest days are so good for us so we really should enjoy them. The funny part is that after 5 or 6 days of running I’m always certain I’ll be on cloud 9 while resting but then I wind up in a funk. At least we know now we are not actually twins 🙂
New reader here!
Your post made me laugh 😀 . I enjoy rest days when I’ve earned them. But I certainly identify with agonizing over a long run the next day, while I’m sitting around in my yoga pants!
Hi! Yup there is something about a sitting around in sweats before a long run that kils my confidence…but then I wind up feeling stronger on the run. Agree that really feeling like you’ve earned it makes it better 🙂
I enjoy rest days but there are times when I do feel sluggish and get too comfortable. That sometimes leads to me feeling guilty and unproductive. However, I try not to be too hard on myself because I know I deserve a break every once in a while!
Good attitude 🙂 no guilt necessary!
I sometimes believe I weigh 50lbs more on rest days … and eat everything in sight! 😀 And on days where it isn’t planned (like the other morning when I ended up at the vet) I am very edgy and restless.
Cool on the new Garmin – look forward to comparing experiences!
Need to get used to the garmin, I’ve been looking at it every minute and going nuts! It’s working though and I like the hrm
I think if you train at certain HR, you can miss the whole chronic cardio epidemic. But mark is right, it does cause inflammation. Runners need to learn to REST, so hard but true. agreed! Love that i found you.
So far found my hr is lower than I thought for the majority of training which is a good thing… I am slowly getting better with my rest days. Mark definitely changed the way I view my training in a good way. Happy to have found you as well 🙂
Tomorrow I will have the rest day blues! And it’s Monday to boot. I hope I am not super crabby at work….
Happy rest day 🙂
Loved this one!
And like you said if a rest day happens to fall on a day where a child is home with a fever…score. But this is my exact problem with rest days…what if! What if I took my rest day and then the next day someone pukes or I remember it’s my turn to read in the library or… I could go on and on and this is my biggest issue with the rest days. So I think I have paranoia about default rest days. So in turn it ruins my actual rest days. Wow that made me sound like a crazy person!
I wrote something else about trying to get workouts in whenever there was no disaster going down. It’s not a way to stay healthy though for me. I’m getting used to running according to a plan to help me meet goals, and not frantically trying to get in as much as I can whenever there’s time! It’s a bad habit kind of mindset that I think can lead to overtraining and injury!
And crazy is always welcome on my website, never a need to censor 🙂