Barcelona Diary #28 — Day Off

I took a day off and I loved it.

Last weekend decided to leave everything behind and just take a break. And by everything and I really mean EVERYTHING. Work, personal life, daily routine and even running.

Recently running have gone from my usual escape valve, that thing that frees my mind, silence the thoughts and makes the rest of the world around me to disappear during 5, 10 or 20K, turning into something more like a responsibility. Yes, and that my friends is the price that comes with ambitious goals and high expectations. It becomes duty rather than joy.

I still love it, don’t get me wrong, especially at the end of a good session, but these those are starting to happen on certain occasions; mostly because of (self-imposed) pressure and responsibility that comes with serious training.

So what did I do? Nothing, just that.

Decided to take a couple of days off out of town and just don’t think about anything, and don’t worry about anything, don’t be responsible about anything. Just walk about, eat, get a couple of new books, and take a lot of pictures, keep waling. Just like a vacation.

It is important to note that I actually took with me my running gear, as I always do when going away from home, and I was indeed looking forward to do my 22 miles (or as close to that a possible) on different surroundings, however, it didn’t happen, and I’m ok with it.

Instead I decided to stay in bed until 9 am, go for coffee and have a lovely breakfast on a beautiful sunny morning in Edinburgh. You know, like normal people.

The result? A complete and absolute rest for both, the mind and body.

I got back rested and ready to tackle the last leg of training left before we head to Barcelona, helped me to silence the noise in the head that have been putting me away to perform at my best, but most importantly, looking to enjoy the runs like I used to.

It might sound a bit obvious, but the thing is that I realised that before this day I haven’t take time off on purpose in more than a year.

Lesson learned.I think I can even get used to do it regularly from now on ;-)