Ebb and Flow
It’s been quite a while since I wrote a fitness/exercise post. To tell you the truth, exercise has taken a back burner lately. I’m still active but I just haven’t felt that interested in formal exercise over the last month. I run, do Pilates, practice a little yoga, walk and bike, teach a few classes a week but I have no interest in ‘training’ or tracking right now.
In my life, in my body, it makes sense to find the exercise/rest balance each year as well as each month, week, and day.
Exercise can be a little bit like a drug, the more I do the more I want. Sometimes it’s necessary to step back, wean myself a bit, and build back up. It’s easy to get caught up in goal-setting, which I love and know can be valuable but not constantly. Run faster. Run longer. Do another race. Do more yoga. More burpees. More. All great things but I find it unsustainable to keep pushing further, faster, deeper all. the. time.
I love and loathe that fitness is not a place of arrival but a constant journey. Hell, I ran a marathon, shouldn’t I be able to up and run a 10k at any moment after that experience? Turns out, no. Not if I want to be happy and safe and feel good the next day. The training for and running 26 miles is still in my body and has influenced my overall health for life, but that specific conditioning has faded.
It’s awesome to train hard but equally important to back off just a little and remind myself that in the end what’s important is moving, period. The end goal is to maintain or increase range of motion, build muscle, burn off stress and anxiety, get high off endorphins, and stay connected with my body. I can achieve all of this through a 2 mile run or a 26 mile run.
My body will soon crave going further, harder, longer but for now I am going to enjoy just going, because even in periods of “rest” I have to move or I’ll go crazy.
There are really only two requirements when it comes to exercise. One is that you do it. The other is that you continue to do it. ~The New Glucose Revolution for Diabetes by Jennie Brand-Miller, Kaye Foster-Powell, Stephen Colagiuri, Alan W. BarclayJennie Brand-Miller
