You know how some runs leave you feeling run ragged and whiny but others can leave grinning maniacally as you run up the street scaring people?  Yeah I had one of those.

My blog is called Slacker Runner for a reason.  In fact it was almost called Part Time Runner.  I know I don’t run as often or as many miles as other people.   I love rest days, they just speak to me.  But what I don’t say is that as much as they speak words of comfort to me, those words also come with guilt.   I feel guilty every time I don’t run and it stresses me out.  The cycle continues on and on and on.

So when Coach Jenny told me to take 2 days off early this week, a part of me freaked out.  Monday and Tuesday as mental health days?!?! Life and work has been stressing me out and I feel like I haven’t slept properly in weeks.  Sunday night saw maybe 3 hours of sleep, maybe.  Had she not told me not to run, I would have tried to run after work on Monday.  That probably would have been a horrible idea.    So instead I followed directions and rested.  A tiny amount of yoga on Monday and nothing on Tuesday.  Turns out having a coach tell me to take the rest days took away most of the guilt.  Who knew?!

When it came time to run on Wednesday I was nervous.  I am not sure why, it’s not like I could have forgotten how.  A 45 minute easy run was on the schedule so I ran in work town to enjoy as much daylight as possible.

Holy crap, people.  It was awesome.  That’s not to say it was easy because I know damn well I ran parts of it too fast.  I ran without music and enjoyed the views.   The weather seemed perfect for a run and I think I would have kept running if I hadn’t run out of daylight.    Well, I also didn’t have water.   People!  I only took 3 walk breaks!!!!  That is unreal for me these days.  Post marathon, walk breaks have been my friend and my crutch.    And the first walk break was only because I can’t run up the hill in the eucalyptus grove without face planting.   However, I was so excited on Wednesday that I tried it.    The slick ground put a pin in that real quick.  😛  The second one was due to a phone call that I couldn’t ignore.  The third was because damn that hill is long.

Seriously, it was awesome.  It was a run I needed mentally as I have 2 races looming on the horizon.  I’m normally cussing running up that last hill instead I was smiling ear to ear.  😀😀

Have you had an ear to ear run?

How are you with rest days?

Happy Friday!!!!

• Run!