And that sometimes leaves me with a problem: what should I do?
Rest is super important in any training regimen; your body needs time to recover, to repair and hopefully grow stronger. But if you are accustomed to training, at any level, taking it easy for 24 hours can be frustrating, especially if you’ve had 5 days of rubbish weather and your rest day is perfect.
When I asked Boothy about the importance of rest days, he sent me this, which makes perfect sense
“Rest days are not a sign of doing less. They are a key part of improving.
If you do not give your body time to recover, rebuild, and adapt, you stop making progress and increase your risk of illness, injury, and burnout.
A good rest day helps physically, but it is just as important mentally, too.”
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| Mental Health boost - SUP |
Thankfully, a rest day does not mean doing nothing.
My schedule currently has a lot of rest days in it. Having had the flu for several weeks, I am still not fit enough to train at a serious level, and any session outside in the cold has me gasping for breath. Thankfulyl things ae warming up and I can feel improvement when i go out.
These rest days are helping me to recover for the SUP season ahead. But that is not always the case, and I am guilty of heading out for a paddle or bike ride on days when I need to spend more time recovering.
The sun is shining, there is no wind, the water is warm, and you can hear your board calling you. And you rightly think, “What harm can it do if I have a gentle paddle?”
You get on the water and feel fantastic, your stroke is relaxed, and you have great rhythm on the water. Birds are singing, fish are jumping, and before you know it, you have paddled 10 km at a great pace and life is good. Of course, you didn’t think you would be out paddling that far; it was a rest day paddle after all, so you didn’t bring a drink or food, and now you are dehydrated, and your body is tired, even if you don’t feel it right away.
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| Not a good session, not enough rest |
The next day, you have a hard interval session scheduled, and after the first few intervals, you feel awful, well below what you are capable of, and you wonder why…
You forgot to rest.
How we rest will vary from paddler to paddler, and it is not as simple as taking a day off every week. Some paddlers may need multiple rest days each week, while others may only need one per month, or fewer. And there are numerous reasons why this is the case; there are hundreds of articles on the internet about resting and how to do it, there is one theme through the better ones that I have looked at: we are all different.
And rest days are not the same as tapering before an event, although they may feel the same!
This is where working with a coach is a real benefit.
Most of us, the majority, are not that good at self-assessment, even if we think we are great at it. Self-assessing fitness, workload and rest days can work for some, but even world-class athletes who coach themselves often work with other coaches from time to time to keep things in check; this reduces the risk of over-training or not maximising potential.
You will see this with Boothy; occasionally, he posts on his social media asking for feedback on his paddling. That takes some confidence to do, but it also keeps him in check, in his words; it stops him from developing bad habits.
Working with a coach means you have a third party who is invested in your success, in achieving your goals. And as you work with your coach, they will be able to help you with rest, how often, what to do when resting and, even more importantly, what NOT to do!
How to rest?
How we rest varies from paddler to paddler; for some, a rest day could be a very low-intensity day; walking, yoga, or stretching. For a few, a rest day may need something much more strenuous, a hard day at a sport that takes them away from paddling, to give the mind a break from the stresses of training.
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| Rest day ride to a lake for fika |
My rest days
These vary, largely depending on my medication levels and the weather. I live on a 10-week cycle:
Weeks 1 and 2. After I get an injection, there is a risk that I will become the Hulk, and rest days are often hard days to keep on top of a high testosterone level, and to stop me ripping my shirts when I turn green! These two weeks are difficult to manage.
These weeks are great for biking in the forest. Behind my house, there is a network of singletrack trails that all lead to lakes that are perfect for coffee stops! I will ride, or paddle, fairly hard but with no structure. Or I pack a rucksack and hike, heading out for a night with one of my dogs. These things give me a break from training and from the struggle of dealing with artificially high testosterone levels.
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| Rest day / night |
Weeks 2-8. Normality. Whatever that is. In these weeks, my rest days are days when I find something positive to do that might raise my HR a little bit, but not much. These days are great for regular kit maintenance and cleaning, writing and testing new kit, if I have any. For me, spending time on the water thinking about writing is a great way to recharge, as long as I am not tempted to paddle hard!
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| Rest day board maintenance |
Weeks 9 and 10. Now rest days are usually days for streaming a film. As I approach the end of my 10-week cycle, I need days with downtime, and the closer I get to my recharge, the more likely I am to have a nap. This phenomenon is often attributed to something called ‘ageing’, but I am not convinced that I am showing signs of that just yet.
Resting is not easy
It can be very difficult to rest, especially if you are super motivated to get a PB in the SUP My Race Time Trial or maybe a real-world race. But resting is super-important. Also, resting is much easier if your coach manages to schedule rest days when the wind and rain are lashing down outside, and you need to write this blog.
Happy rest day!
You can find out more about Michael's training on his website Booth Training, from his Booth Training Instagram account and on his YouTube channel BoothTV.
You can find me running the Facebook group SUP My Race and now, occasionally, on Instagram.
You can read the previous training logs here Training Logs and you can get to individual blog posts using the labels in the sidebar.