Week 15

This week my mind turned, or was forced to turn, to the subject of rest. Saturday April 6 saw me in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland at Maleny Dairy to complete a 13km Spartan Super Sprint. Not my first obstacle race by a long way, not the longest or the hardest I’ve done. The setting was idyllic with rolling green hills (although I hate hills when I’m racing), crisp blue skies and beautiful doe eyed cattle looking on at these idiots running around their home, climbing, throwing, carrying and crawling on their bellies through their freshly deposited crap.

Somewhere along the way, either whilst wading chest deep through creeks and dams, or crawling under barbed wire through the aforementioned crap, I must have taken a mouthful of something that disagreed with me. And what a disagreement it was. For two days I felt like I’d been used as a punchbag for the local UFC champs. At one point I actually felt like my abs were separating from my ribs (I’m not even sure if they are attached but you get the idea).

During that Netflix and definitely not chilled marathon I had plenty of time to think, reflect, plan and appreciate the effect that some enforced rest was having on my mental health as well as my body. We talk about a rest day, and sometimes a cheat day, as if they are a moment of acceptable weakness in our journey towards immortality. In reality we should think of them in the same way we let a steak rest, or allow time for concrete to set or even the time it takes dough to rise when making bread (mmm steak sandwich is on my mind now). Rest is a key phase in the growth, they go hand in hand. Yin and Yang. So with that in mind, happy resting.