Tag Archives: rest

Body tired

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I’ve known for a while that the weakness in my healthy living lifestyle has been sleep. I just don’t get enough of it. If my sleeping patterns aren’t enough of an indicator, my Garmin watch reminds me of this regularly, (my sleep score last night was 34). it doesn’t help that I’m on holidays and sleeping on futon couches. And I know I’m not going to improve things until I get home. But today I got a reminder of how important sleep is.

I stayed with my nocturnal uncle for 4 nights and was going to bed between 4am and 6am. I headed back to my mom’s last night and although she went to bed around 11, I was still up at almost 3am. I managed to sleep past 9:30 but I was body tired today.

I headed to the gym early this afternoon and everything felt hard. I needed longer than usual rest times before sets, and I cut my workout short. I just didn’t have the energy to continue. It’s obvious that my sleeping patterns and lack of sleep are why I feel this way.

It’s the one area of my life that I really don’t manage well. I don’t sleep for long enough, and often not well enough either. This is something I have to build into my routines. I know this, I just need to start doing it… right after these holidays. It’s time to stop complaining about this and actually do something about it.

Slower pace

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Talking to my wife tonight, I mentioned how things have slowed down now that I’m staying with my mom on my Ontario holiday. “No kidding”, she said, “You needed this!”

I really did. I’ve been kind of going non-stop since mid August. And between everything I did to make it busy, my time at home was dealing with our renovation and clean up after it was done or prepping for my next event. I’ve been moving fast for quite a while now and a slow down feels really good.

Sometimes you need to hear it from someone else to recognize you are right where you need to be.

Recovery time

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Today I had a lovely lunch with my buddy Dave, and some family and friends. A meal that was planned for us for dinner yesterday (optimistically) thinking we’d be done Everesting the Crunch. We didn’t get finished until after 11pm. And other than a quick drive down to a local Pho restaurant with my daughter tonight, that’s all I did today.

Every other moment involved rest, relaxation, and recovery. In fact, I got home from dinner almost 3 hours ago and sat on the couch to write this and fell fast asleep. I’ll share a greater debrief of our event tomorrow. I’m off to bed again. Dave and I have a 7am workout tomorrow. Good habits need to be maintained… but I’m pretty sure tomorrow won’t be leg day! 😆

Taking it slooow

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I had a wonderful afternoon yesterday with friends and family, and I had a longer sleep in before going for my usual morning workout. The day started great. Then I had a nap, stayed in bed a while, had a shower, and then had another long nap.

I realize that I’ve been pushing myself hard physically and then with all the usual year end events at school as well as all the extra retirement celebrations, I’m also emotionally wiped too. Both my social and physical batteries needed a recharge. And the beauty of it is I don’t have an agenda to worry about.

Now I’m going on a mini getaway, heading to spend time with my sister and cousin for an extended weekend and we literally have nothing scheduled. The timing could not be better, I’m off to do a whole lot of nothing… and it feels good.

Both good and busy!

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I’m exhausted. Thursday night was a late retirement dinner event, and so was Friday night. Then I finally got to the weekend. This morning, Saturday morning, I drove my mom to the airport. From there, I took my daughter into town to look at a rental apartment. We had 45 minutes to kill so we went for coffee and a couple scones. I didn’t realize that would be lunch. We viewed the apartment and walked around the neighbourhood for a bit. Then it was off to the next event.

We met my wife, in-laws, and youngest daughter at the theatre and we saw ‘Come From Away’. This was my second time seeing this wonderful play. Then I took my oldest daughter directly from the theatre to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal so she could head back to Victoria.

I was very hungry by that point and headed to the outlet mall to eat. I arrived home nine and a half hours after heading out this morning and walked straight up to my bedroom and fell asleep for 2 hours. I haven’t even been up an hour and I’m ready to go to bed for the night.

It’s June, school is busy, retirement celebrations are busy, family life is busy. Everything is going well, it’s just a lot of busy. I’m exhausted and I’ve got to get up early and do a few climbs up the Coquitlam Crunch tomorrow morning in training for Everesting the Crunch in August… again something good, going well… just a lot right now. Off to bed to ensure I get a good night’s sleep, because I need it!

…and rest!

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The one area of my life that most needs fixing is sleep. While I don’t dwell on the numbers, (that would stress me out), my Garmin watch averages my score at 48/100 over the last 4 weeks. That is by no means something to be proud of, especially when half of that time was when I was on holidays.

I have a few strategies in mind to improve this, but I’m also keenly aware that worrying about my score is not a way to improve it. Still, if there is an area of my life that I know can improve my health and longevity, better sleep is probably my highest priority.

Another related area is rest between workouts. My discipline and dedication to fitness has not necessarily been all positive. After all, it was extended rest (with accompanying massages and physiotherapy) that finally rid me of months of sciatic pain down my leg. Then I came fully back into working out and today I could feel my pecs, my lats, my triceps, my quads, and my hamstrings, which are all a little sore. Yes, it’s a good kind of ‘I worked these muscles well’ sore, but that’s a lot to feel all at once. So today I rest.

After writing this, and before bed, I’ll meditate and stretch. I need to remember that giving my muscles a rest is as important as giving both body and mind a rest during sleep. It doesn’t matter if I’m working different muscle groups on different days, I still need to put full gaps in between workout days.

I thought I was being smart, not yet going back to weekly sprints to work on my Max VO2, and giving my legs and back a little longer to recover. This week I was also working with slightly lighter weights, not getting near my maximum weight on any sets. But my body still told me that I’d done more than enough. That said, 6 months ago I would have made this a cardio day instead of a full rest day. Maybe I’m learning.

Maybe I’ll go beyond listening a little more closely to my body, giving it needed rest when it tells me. Maybe I’ll integrate rest as a regular part of my routine. Thats my new plan. It starts today with a stretch and meditation to end a very mellow and exercise-less day.

It takes time to unwind

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It might have been slowed down a bit due to having a cold, but it has taken me a while to unwind this holiday. I always take a short while to get used to holiday mode, and not feel guilty for having a quiet day where I don’t do much.

Today I didn’t do much of anything. I spent a bit of the morning feeling guilty about not getting a workout in, and then late this afternoon I finally felt it… I felt unwound enough to just relax and enjoy doing a little bit of nothing.

The big plans for tomorrow are to head to a beach and rent some bikes to ride on the boardwalk. A busy day compared to today, but also, how chill is that for a day plan?

Now the holiday really begins. Now it becomes guilt free listening to a an audiobook for over an hour. I can just chill, and not feel like I should be doing something else. I can sip my morning coffee in the sunshine and feel like no matter what the day brings, it will be a good day.

I don’t have to fill time, I can just appreciate what I’m doing, while I do it… even if the thing I’m doing is nothing.

Duffy and Crab

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Today was a wonderful first day of holidays, visiting my mom and sister in Tustin. We went for a cruise on a Duffy boat then enjoyed a bag of seafood at a restaurant called Kicking Crab.

What’s a Duffy? It’s a fully electric boat that travels at 5 mph at its maximum speed. I got to captain it, with my wife, sister, mom, and an aunt who I haven’t seen in over 25 years. We circled protected a harbour in the boat, then drove around the beaches before going for a crab, shrimp, and clam feast.

A late afternoon nap was the final part of a wonderful day. I could get used to this!

More rest

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I’m going to physiotherapy. I’m going to massage therapy. I’m doing my stretches and exercises. And I’m still dealing with leg pain that gets triggered from standing. Until a week ago I could just sit for 5 minutes and the pain would fade. I could walk on the treadmill or up/downhill, and even run, and felt no pain… but after 3-5 minutes standing in the shower, shaving & brushing my teeth, or making food, the pain returned.

For the last week and a half, the pain has crept into activities where I’m mobile and moving, and then has been slow to subside, even when I sit.

So, I’ll keep doing my stretches, keep going to physio and massage, and even seek more medical help. What I’m also going to do is give my legs more rest. I’ve been pushing hard, I’ve seen amazing gains… but my body is telling me that it needs a break. I’m going to go easy on my legs, and give this issue some time to heal.

The power of rest

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A few days ago I felt a tickle in my throat. I have no idea if it’s just a placebo or if it actually helps, but when I feel a sore throat coming on, I start sucking chewable vitamin C likes they are throat lozenges and it seems to help. But this time I did something else, I spent the weekend napping and relaxing.

This has to be the most amount of time I’ve spent doing almost nothing in years. It was in no way a typical weekend. I had two 2+hour naps, and I spend most of the last 2 days horizontal. And I think I’m almost ready for bed. Normally a day like that would leave me wired before bed and unable to sleep. But my body needed the rest and I feel like I’ll fall asleep easily tonight.

The difference compared to other times like this is that this time I actually listened to my body. For so long I’ve tried to muscle through feeling run down. But this weekend I took my vitamins, I ate when I was hungry, and I rested. I usually do anywhere from 7,000 to 12,000 steps in a day. According to my watch, I took 713 steps today. If this was a regular thing, it would probably be a problem… but this is exactly what I needed, and I’m feeling good that I actually listened to my body and took the rest it required.

I’m ready to return to my full routine in high gear tomorrow!