Off day jitters

As I mentioned in the last post, its off week, or for people listening in who are already skeptical that what I do actually counts as "work," welcome to "regeneration week." Rest, as many Americans often forget or ignore, is just as important as the time you spend not resting. In fact, in my opinion, rest days are even more difficult to do right than the hardest interval set imaginable on a bike. Rest days, given proper thought and planning, give time to sit, think, and even stand on the back porch waiting for your chicken to get done grilling, attempting to close your eyes and go 2 minutes without thinking of anything. Thinking of nothing is harder than you think, which is to say, not thinking requires a pretty concentrated effort of thinking.

Often I get caught up in filling my off days with a to-do pile that accumulates on the chair next to me:

That pile of clutter represents a pile of stress on your mind, something you need to ignore to properly rest. So, all those grocery lists with workouts written on them, the power-tap transfer dock, the mail, the bills, the issue of world cycling productions you've been using to shop your clothing sponsor unsuccessfully to local shops, the busted power-tap hub, that movie you've been planning to watch with that one guy from James bond who is awesome, and even the dirty floor need not be sources of stress to your supposedly stress free day. I'm a hopelessly active being, if I'm doing nothing I often consider that time wasted or otherwise poorly utilized, but oddly enough, when I'm being extremely productive and nearing the end of a hard week, the only thing i seem to crave is to do nothing. I don't think this is coincidence, yet i think its my body telling me what it wants, and i have to master a way that gives it to my body. In comes 2 options:
Obviously you are given this choice every day in some form. One represents a more passive form of rest while the other a far more active and rewarding form of rest (hah, the resters dilemma, hah, ok im done). I am finding more and more that nothing can fill your time better than reading a book. If anything, sitting down and actively making the decision on the right over the left is an exercise in mental toughness, at least it is for me. Nothing comes of the left but nervous and stressful energy occupying your mind space. But on the right, you are required to be attentive of your restful surroundings like the music being played, the chair or couch you are in, and even the position of your body. Its also a chance for your mind to move at its own restful pace, and hey, you may even learn something.

Being able to control that nervous energy that, at one point, found me lacing up running shoes at the door ready for a run (for God knows what horrible reason, self hatred perhaps), into something productively restful is a way of training your mind while your body rests. If you think about it, maybe while your spending that 2 minutes trying not to think about anything, having control over your own mind and thoughts can be a very powerful tool. So when it looks like this outside:

And it looks like your going to be pent up in the house yet again, there are good things to do that are not sizing down to-do lists and getting to the end of the day wondering where it went. As hard as you have had to work to get your body to a place where it can take the abuse of a rigorous schedule (cycling, working, school, etc..) mimics the amount of self control required to give your body that uninterrupted "nothing" it so desires in your 40th hour at work or equivalently 7th day of training in a row. Trust me, learning how to rest is important, and i am just at the beginnings of getting a feel for how to do it. I guess you could say today i upgraded to Cat 4 as a rest-er, aka, i feel like i need to tell everyone about what i did and ignorantly think no one else knows what I'm talking about.

Enjoy your rest days! and read that book, its really excellent for more than just its raw history and analysis of the food industry. I really want to visit Polyface farm, or find a way to apply what they do there to my own life.