If you checked out my Instagram account a few weeks ago, you’d have seen that I’m just off the back of competing in a Spartan 10 km obstacle course race. It was so much fun, and really gave me a chance to test the limits of my body. I’d trained hard for it, and it paid off – I finished 25th for women.
Now I’m setting my sights on my next challenge: a half marathon.
I don’t just want to finish. I want to do well. I completed my first half marathon a few years ago, and I’d love to beat my time. That means that I need to be focused in the way I train. Which means I need a training plan.
I’m not new to writing training plans. In high school I did a lot of cycling and trained year-round to be in top shape come racing season. I know how to build on my gains, throw in cross training for variety, and alternate between cardio-based and strength-based workouts for optimal improvement. Yet the most important day in my training week isn’t my long run day, or my time trial day. It’s recovery day.
My muscles don’t actually get stronger by doing squats and push ups and sprints. Those exercises pull my muscle fibres apart, making them weaker as my workout goes on. But over time, by giving my muscles a chance to recover on a rest day, my muscle fibres knit back together stronger than before. So if I just pushed and pushed and pushed every day, with no chance for recovery, at best I wouldn’t be reaching my full potential, and at worst I’d deplete my body and be headed for illness or injury.
Rest is a key ingredient in making an elite athlete.
It’s also a key ingredient in making an elite parent.
We could push and push and push every day, bouncing from work to disciplining the kids to cleaning the house to being the kid’s taxi to cooking dinner to reading stories to tucking kids into bed, day after day after day, without breaks. But if we don’t schedule in time for rest and recovery, we will get depleted, and risk illness or parental burnout.
We need to allow ourselves a chance to recover.
Here’s three ways how:
1. Daily.
After a big run or after a tough weights session, I typically try to make sure the rest of my day is fairly relaxed. That means I’m not going to schedule a big run on the same day I plan on taking the kids out for a big day at the zoo. I would just get too exhausted.
As parents, we also need to factor recovery into our daily routine. That could be doing a mindfulness meditation just before starting work. It could mean taking time to eat lunch without any distractions. It could be doing some progressive relaxation before bed. Maybe your daily recovery looks like a walk around the block with your partner or reading a good book in a cosy corner. If you’ve ever tried to take a break and ended up scrolling Instagram or the titles of the shows on Netflix, and ended up feeling worse at the end than you did at the start, you know that not all breaks are equal. The key to daily recovery is doing something that makes you feel fulfilled. Try out a few different things and find what makes you genuinely happy.
2. Weekly.
In planning out my weekly training program, I have a mixture of high intensity days, endurance building days, and recovery days. On those recovery days I might do active recovery with a yoga session or by hitting the pool for some easy laps, or I might just take the whole day off.
With parenting, it’s just as important to find things you can do on a weekly basis that fills your soul. That could be a Saturday morning brunch with friends every week. It could be a Friday night date with your partner. It could be taking time one evening a week to indulge in a hobby that’s just your own, such as a pottery class. When considering what you want to try, think about which of your deeper emotional needs are going unmet. Maybe you need more opportunity for connection (do you tend to feel as though your days lack meaningful conversations with others?), more time for autonomy (are your days filled up with doing things for others and you feel as though you don’t have time to choose to do things for yourself?), or more chances to develop competence (do you feel as though your skills aren’t being challenged and developed?).
3. Seasonal.
Before a big event, I will have a tapering period. Depending on how big the event is, that could mean a period of a few days to a few weeks of reduced volume and intensity in my training, so that my body isn’t fatigued going into my event. Then following the event, I’ll have another few days of recovery before shifting focus for my next event.
The same applies to parenting. It’s easy to load up the calendar in the lead up to Christmas or during the school holidays, only to feel exhausted by the end of the holiday period. It takes a lot of intentionality to say ‘no’ to fun activities and build in that recovery period. Try having a ‘do-nothing’ weekend on the last weekend of the school holidays to allow time for rest, or reducing the number of extra-curricular activities during December to allow time for the Christmas activities you would like to get to. Similarly, you might make it a tradition to have a stay-at-home day after coming back from a family holiday, or after a big event like Easter.
Working endlessly day after day to be everything your kids need you to be doesn’t put you on the path to being a good parent. It puts you on the path to being a depleted parent.
And as tough as it can be to find time in a busy calendar for rest, it’s one of the most important things you can do. It’s easy to say that you can’t afford to take the time to go to your weekly pottery class, or do some morning meditation, or that you can’t possibly scale back during the holiday period. But the truth is that you can’t afford not to take some time for yourself. Pushing through will deplete you. Resting will make you stronger.
If you want to show up for your kids in genuine ways, with the energy to authentically be there for them and meet their needs, you need to build in your own recovery time. Recovery is the key to success.
Take time for you my friends!
Beck xx