389: The Power of Rest

 In episode 389 of the Real Life Runners podcast, we discuss the universal law of rhythm, emphasizing the importance of understanding and embracing life's natural cycles. We explore how recognizing the ebb and flow of activity and rest can significantly impact both training and overall well-being. The episode dives into Kevin's personal journey of overcoming his relentless push in training at the expense of his health, leading to seizures and a realization of the critical need for rest. Angie shares her recent insights from a business event, highlighting the necessity of mental rest in addition to physical rest. We provide actionable strategies for listeners to incorporate genuine rest into their routines, stressing that true recovery is foundational to achieving goals, whether in running or other life pursuits.

00:54 The Power of Rest and the Law of Rhythm

02:16 Kevin's Personal Journey with Rest

07:54 The Importance of Mental and Physical Rest

15:35 Balancing Training and Rest

27:21 Practical Tips for Prioritizing Rest 

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Transcript

Angie: 0:00

Welcome to the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 389. Today we're talking about a universal law, the law of rhythm, and how everything ebbs and flows and lives in cycles, and how that is so important for you and your training and the way that you choose to live your life. stay tuned. What's up, Runners? Welcome to the show today. Kevin's back with us. Last week we had an interview episode with Don Oswald. If you guys missed it, you should definitely go back and check that out. We talked all about the power of mantras. And today we're talking about the power of rest and specifically the law of rhythm. So what is the law of rhythm? The law of rhythm is essentially a universal principle. It's so this is something that no one can argue with. We can't fight this. This is a universal law that exists. Which is that everything exists in cycles there for every up. There's a down for every high. There's a low I guess those are the same

Kevin: 1:21

those are the same but we can't fight this We're just going to lose the fight. I think that's the thing is we fight this all the time That's the whole point of this episode is we all love fighting the law of rhythm because we're like no, we don't need to have this combination of Push and then rest and recover from that I'm just going to push hard and that's actually going to be my cycle. it's just pushing that's the rhythm I've got.

Angie: 1:45

And so today we really want to talk about the power of rest because rest is way more powerful than all of us realize, I think. And I, think that most people don't rest enough. I know that's a big generalization to make, but I think that is definitely something that is true in our culture today.

Kevin: 2:03

even within our house and the two of us, we talk about this all the time of the importance of rest. we're doing a whole podcast on it. I think, I feel like we've done related topics before. Yeah. And it's a matter of what, do we actually follow these rules ourself?

Angie: 2:16

Yeah. And I think, why don't we like, for those people that might be new to the podcast, maybe we rewind a little bit and talk a little bit about why the power of rest is so important to us and like the journey that we were on seven years ago. I was going

Kevin: 2:28

to say, are we seven year rewinding off of this one? All right. So the short version of this is, I was told. training as much as I possibly could with two small kids and trying to up my mileage and full time job teaching high school and coaching cross country and track. And so I was either getting up super early to run before the sun, or I would stay up super late and run at night after after dinner and then recover from that, I was sleeping like an average of five to six hours.

Angie: 2:58

And like most of the time it would be like staying up till about midnight, because this was before we gave ourselves a bedtime, we had little kids. We were like staying up late and watching TV shows at night. And then you were grading paper. So most nights we were probably getting to bed around midnight, I would say like between 11 and 12, and then you were waking up at five, sometimes maybe even a little bit earlier because that was in your longer mileage days. And you would wake up. So that you could be like out the door by five. Yeah. And so you'd be getting essentially five hours of sleep every night.

Kevin: 3:28

Yeah. Roughly five hours of sleep. And then I'd be like, Oh, I'll recover in a couple of days from that. And like once a week, once or twice a week, I'd have a night where I got like good rest. And that was seven hours and it was never really enough, but I could sustain it for a while. I just had enough caffeine. I had enough that I could keep going. I was a little bit younger than I am now, and I made it work for a while to the level that I won a marathon. it was just those few weeks after the marathon where I had a seizure in the middle of school that things were like, wait, did I really? Something might be off here. I ignored it. And then a few months later I had another one. Then a few months later I had another one and it was like, maybe we should look at our lifestyle and figure out what's actually going on here.

Angie: 4:10

Yeah. And I think, that was a really weird time for us because we, in our heads, we were really healthy. Like we were eating right. We were exercising both of us. you have. Very great like BMI's and health markers and all of the things so none of it really made sense and when Kevin started having the seizures he did he had all the tests he had Blood work and brain scans and all these things and they couldn't find anything that was wrong. And so Go ahead.

Kevin: 4:36

if there was a test that Angie could come up with that might be possibly useful, she convinced the doctor to order it for us. that's literally what happened. They were like, I don't think that's going to be useful. You're like, okay, but could you order it? And they're like, yes, I can order that test. Yeah.

Angie: 4:49

because it was just such a question, like what the heck is going on here? We are trying to search for answers. And yes, like you underwent some, tests. Interesting tests, which is fine. Like the sleep test, I think, was my favorite.

Kevin: 5:02

The sleep test was super creepy, but that's, it was fine. It wasn't

Angie: 5:05

creepy, but the thing is You didn't

Kevin: 5:07

have a camera staring at you, watching you sleep all night long.

Angie: 5:10

Okay. I guess I didn't think about it that way. I thought you meant like all the wires that were attached to your head.

Kevin: 5:14

The wires were fine, but literally there is a camera with a little red dot above it that points at you. At you laying in bed. And you go into the room, you turn off all the lights, and get into the bed. And the guy who's going to watch you sleep all night long goes, Alright, that red dot straight in front of you? Yes, I do. That's me, I'll be watching you tonight. that was how you, that's how I went to bed.

Angie: 5:36

That guy was funny too, right? He was super funny. Yeah. so this is the thing, here we are, we think that we're doing all the right things. We think we're being healthy and Kevin has had three unexplained seizures. And so the more and more that I dug into the research and started to try to figure out what in the world could possibly be going on. The more I started to learn about brain health and nervous system regulation and everything that was going on and it really pointed to He's not getting enough sleep Like we are not getting enough sleep But especially Kevin with the way that he was training and what he was putting his body through his nervous system was so Dysregulated that his brain was literally having sleep seizures because he was so out of balance with work versus rest,

Kevin: 6:21

right? I was just like, I really was living with the philosophy of all rest later. I will get to rest eventually. It's not time to rest right now. It's going to come eventually. And my body was like, yeah, it's gonna come right now. Right now is the time. Cause you're conking out on the floor. That's what's going to happen.

Angie: 6:40

Yeah. And I think that's one of the things that is very true is that there's oftentimes we can push ourselves and our body or, gives us a signal like, you might want to look at this a little bit. it gives us the feather and then the pebble and then the little rock and then the big rock. And if you don't listen, it's the boulder that hits you. And for most runners, that's an injury. Most runners get A knee problem or Achilles tendonitis, but Kevin went all out,

Kevin: 7:06

had seizures. Again, marry a physical therapist. There are very few actual like joint issues that show up. You keep replacing your shoes. You marry a physical therapist and you're like, my knees are golden, but man, that's. Seizure was an issue.

Angie: 7:21

Yeah. Your musculoskeletal system was all good. So nervous system

Kevin: 7:25

that was wonky.

Angie: 7:26

Yeah. We had to move to the nervous system to really get your attention here. So why is this happening? Why did this happen to Kevin? Why is this happening to other people? And I don't necessarily mean seizures, but just in general, like there's a lot of health conditions that people are faced with that I truly believe are a result of lifestyle choices of the way that we're living our life because Between, pushing too hard, not getting enough sleep, not getting enough rest, our nervous system becomes completely dysregulated. And that's really what we want to talk about. We want to talk about this idea of rest and how important it is for both our nervous system in the way that we function, but also for our training. Because if you're listening to this podcast, it's likely that you want to become a better runner in some way. Maybe you're trying to train for a new race distance. Maybe you're trying to get faster. Whatever it is, you're trying to become a stronger runner. And so there's this belief that resting is not productive. And we really want to start to break that down because that is, The opposite of the truth like we are conditioned to power through to push more that if we want to Get better as a runner move up in our career become a better, Fill in the blank whatever you're looking at The key to that is to do more and to push yourself harder and to not rest, People have gotten So, to the opposite side of the spectrum with this and they're just because the world of technology that we live in, we can literally be working all of the time, like there's no more like a leading work at work, like your work is in your hand held device. pretty much at all times. You could be checking your email or on social media or doing something at all times. And that has become really detrimental to this natural law of rhythm that we should be abiding by.

Kevin: 9:15

Yeah. you used to have literally, there was a work life balance that was, broken into when you left work. You don't have to leave work. Work can come with you in your pocket. at all times, it can be with you. You can wake up, and before you go into work, you could just check your emails off of your phone. there's not a clear definitive break, and so the rhythm just gets thrown. And any time the rhythm's off, you're just gonna, you're just gonna, You're not going to be performing your best, we're going to talk more specifically about the work to rest balance, but the whole idea of actual, whatever your job is balanced with your more social aspect of life that has a rhythm to it also, and you have to have find these appropriate balances. The balances aren't 50 50, but it's a rhythm to it. But there has to be some of both. And when one side just starts continuously bleeding into the other, you've completely lost the balance. The pendulum just swings to one side and never gets to swing back to the other pendulums work by swinging to both sides. If they don't swing to both sides, it's a busted pendulum. So that's,

Angie: 10:14

yeah, it's true though. And this was something that I really realized this past week. So last week I was at a business event and. A big message that I was receiving during this event was this lack of rest and my inability to truly rest and truly be able to receive. And so by me not being able to receive and to rest, I'm really in violation of this law of rhythm. I'm someone and you, if you're, you listening to this podcast, you can probably relate to this. I'm a giver. Like I love helping people. I love giving of myself. I'm the response of myself. I'm the responsible one, the dependable one. I'm always in action. I get stuff done and I take a lot of pride in that. And I think that we as runners, a lot of us are more of that type, a purse type of personality, right? And so we do, we are very productive. We like challenges. We like checking boxes. We like getting stuff done. And so one of the big realizations that I had. Last week was that I was not rest. I'm I have not been resting enough and it's funny But and I'm gonna just you know Let you know and tell you the truth here because I know it's something that we preach here on the podcast It's something that we teach to all of our clients inside the training academy is the power of rest days And I would take rest days right my Sundays are typically my rest days where I wouldn't formally be exercising but There's a difference between physical rest and mental rest and we need both and this is one of the big things that I realized is that even though I may physically be resting where I'm not exerting myself, maybe I'm not exercising that day, I wasn't getting the mental rest that I really needed. My brain was constantly on. And so Kevin and I were talking about that and asking, do you think that People in general, other people are having this issue as well. are people getting as much rest as they think they are? And I say the answer is no, because our brains are just constantly stimulated. We have the things in our pockets, right? We have our phone, we have TV, we have computers, we have all of these things that are with us all of the time. We are in this state of constant overstimulation that. Even if we are physically resting so often, we are definitely not resting mentally.

Kevin: 12:34

Yeah. if the two of us train sit down and just watch a movie on the couch, you start getting fidgety after a little while, because you're like, I don't feel like I'm being productive. I'm just watching this movie. Whereas I'll sit down and just I really enjoy getting pulled into a movie and it honestly It doesn't matter how bad the movie is. I get sucked in like we're coming up on Christmas now Yeah, it doesn't matter that it's a Hallmark movie I'm three minutes in and I know exactly who's getting together at the end. I am pulled deeply into that I am fully invested and you are very easily distracted and able to be like, all right, since I know what's going to happen in this movie, I can sit here and watch this. But I could also, while watching the movie, get this, and that thing done where I'm like, no. We're going to sit and relax and watch a movie. It's a very different thing between the two of us. Our kids are even more to the extreme. not just ours, but I watch all of these high school kids. You watch them try and watch a movie while also being on their phone while pulling out a tablet and having three Separate screens going at the same time. It's absurd how much Entertainment can be in front of them because the movie's not enough They have to then snap somebody about them sitting and watching the movie and not our own kids But like the last time we went to the movie theater, that's what the kid next to me was doing Really? They were filming, they were snapping themselves watching a movie. Yeah. I'm like, what are, just sit and watch the movie, but it's the movie isn't enough stimulation. I have to put more stimulation on top of that.

Angie: 13:57

And that's the culture that we live in now. And I, as an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, I, Work from home, right? So I can constantly be working and there's always something to do because as an entrepreneur, my brain is so active. I always have new ideas. I am never at a shortage for ideas at all. And, But the problem is I don't need to take action on all those ideas, but I don't want to lose them. So I like want to write them down. And then I think, okay, maybe I should be taking that. That's a really good idea. Maybe I should be doing something about that. And the answer is no, like you don't need to be doing all of that stuff, Angie, like it's just not. And I think that this is one of those things that so many people in our society are faced with and because of this constant stimulation. of our brains, our cortisol levels are chronically elevated, which is leading to more inflammation in the body. It's leading to more chronic disease. And our nervous systems are in this constant state of sympathetic activation, this fight or flight. And even though you might not feel like you're in fight or flight, you really are. Like if you, if I went through like a checklist with you and said, are you feeling anxious? Are you feeling stressed? The majority of the population would probably say yes, and that really shows us that our nervous systems are in that dysregulated state where we are just on in this constant state of I need to do something, I need to be somewhere like some like it's this FOMO, that a lot of people have as well that are putting us in this state of activation. So we really need to Learn how to balance rest and work and actually get proper rest as well. And I think, we want to obviously apply that to our training lives, because it is important for you to make the hard days hard, make sure the easy days are easy, and then also have rest days on top of that. But we also, this is the reason that we started out with this part of, as the first part of the podcast was. To really recognize all of the other things that are adding to stress and nervous system activation in your life, because all of those things are playing a role in, Yeah,

Kevin: 16:04

if you're just filling up your day with constant things, it's how I've felt for the last like week or so, because I've been sick. So I really have just been making sure that I get through the day. But getting through the day is not a great way to live a long life. Always. Like sometimes that's gonna happen. Sometimes you have just a completely loaded day and you wake up and you're feeling tired, but there's stuff that literally still has to get done. Like our daughter had a dance competition. I had to drive there. We had to get this thing done and I was not my optimal day. Personally, it was not like me at my absolute best, but there were things that had to get done. It was like, I need to check these boxes and get through the day, but that's not how you should be living your whole life. Your whole life shouldn't just be like, I wake up, I drag myself through the day as best as I possibly can. And then I try and sleep for a little bit. And then I just do that over and over again. You're never actually striving towards mastery of anything towards success in any area. If you're just dragging yourself through every single day, And you're missing out on a whole heck of a lot of enjoyment around you.

Angie: 17:06

Yeah. one of my coaches, he's always has, he has this phrase, the rest is the work. And that has been a really, Tough one for me to get on board with really I like the concept of it cause I'm like, heck yeah, the rest is the work. Like I can be, building this business while I'm resting and like this whole idea of helping people and creating things that are helpful, putting out this podcast, for example, It takes us some time to record it and to edit it and to get it all uploaded and all that stuff. But then it just lives out there and people can be listening to it and consuming it and gaining benefits from it like for years and years down the road, right? Which is amazing. And This whole idea of the rest is the work. I, I want to get on board and I think that's really one of the things that I, started to realize last week and I'm really going to commit to getting better at this coming year in 2025 is really being able to step away from the from my computer, being able to rest, making sure that when we are watching a movie, I don't also have my phone right next to me, that the phone is staying up on the counter. I'm at, and I'm actually involved and engaged with the movie or, with my family or whatever it might be because resting really opens up space for renewal, for repair, recovery, creativity, all of these things. Come during the rest. Come during the time where our brains aren't constantly stimulated. And I think that's one of the big things that's, And what I'm really lacking, I know for me and I, can speak for probably a lot of other people is when we stay so busy, we don't have that time for creativity and for renewal and for recovery. Like, when I don't have my phone in my hand, That's when my ideas come, when I'm in the shower, think about it. How many times are you in the shower? And like, all of a sudden you've got all of these great ideas. It's probably because you're not stimulated by something else. You're just in the shower, you're allowing yourself space. And then the ideas actually have time to come to you. One of the things that I've also been trying to do is to take a walk. Like when I go on, walks with the dog and not bring my phone with me every now and then I'll have to bring it. if I am. Need to track the kids or you know if I Want them to be able to get a hold of me or something like that But I keep it in my pocket I try not you know to take it out or I'm not I make a point not to listen to Podcasts on all of my walks like I do on some of course, but trying to just leave more space for down time to let my brain just open up. You're smiling over here.

Kevin: 19:37

I'm smiling. Does the dog actually let you take your phone on the walk? Because if I take my phone out and try and look at it while walking the dog, she just stops.

Angie: 19:44

Really?

Kevin: 19:45

Oh, a hundred percent. She stops and is I'm not moving until you put that back in your pocket.

Angie: 19:48

That's awesome.

Kevin: 19:49

Yeah.

Angie: 19:49

I don't really take it out much. It usually just stays in my pocket because I have my AirPods on.

Kevin: 19:53

Ah, fair enough. So she doesn't realize. Yeah, so I'm not silly dog. You've tricked her.

Angie: 19:58

I don't walk around, like staring at it. Like there, and there's a lot of people in our neighborhood that do, I'm walking the dog and I'm looking around and I'm watching people just walking and they're just staring at their phones and it's look at the beauty around you.

Kevin: 20:10

I've gone on many a run and have seen a person walking their dogs, staring at their phone. And I'm like, they have no idea I'm running straight at them. I'm going to need to give them all sorts of clearance because I don't know what that dog's going to do. And they don't even know that I exist.

Angie: 20:23

But if you are someone that wants to get better in your running, if you want to become a stronger runner, a faster runner, be able to run longer, you also need to keep in mind that you need more rest because rest, that's the part that refills your energy stores so that you can be more productive. You can be more efficient. You can go on longer runs. You can start to tap into that higher end speed work if you want to get faster because without that balance, You're not going to have the energy that you need to be able to train in the way that you want. And so for a lot of us, that means that we may need to adjust our training plans to make sure that you're really recovered. And this really goes, I know we can talk about this since you've been sick lately and Kevin right now is training for his next 100 mile race in January. And, he was just sick for the past couple of weeks. So it's like, all right, what is, what's going on here? Because there's not much time left between now and race day. how can you adjust your training plan to still be able to hit the goals that you want? while also honoring what's going on in your body.

Kevin: 21:28

You have to start with the second one. You have to honor what's going on in your body and not freak out that all of the training that you've put into it, because I've been running for years. We covered this on a previous podcast that the number is way too many years to try and actually figure out, but I've been running for so long that the fact that I have not been consistent with my running for the last two weeks, because I've basically been sick for two weeks. Like I almost got better and then we had a few nights in a row where I got really terrible sleep and I did not recover. I got right back into really not sick again.

Angie: 22:01

But that's, again, that's just confirming what we're saying here, right? Is that it was really the lack of sleep that allowed your body to not recover or that, didn't allow your body to recover, I guess you would say?

Kevin: 22:12

Yeah, whatever it was. Like, I was almost better and then we had a function that the two of us had to go to and it was like, I did not get much sleep at all on that night. And I just, I wasn't able to get the recovery that I needed. Literally, the physical sleep, it was not able to fit into what else I needed to do during that day. And I'm like, all right, then I need to tweak my training plan. I need to cut the mileage. I need to take, this needs to be a full off day. This needs to be a second full off day. And it's gotten to a point where I could have started freaking out over this, but what's the point? The alternative was continue to go out and try to run poorly. I don't have the energy to do it. So I'm dragging my exhausted body through the run, which is probably just going to take, make my sickness stretch out even longer. And now I'm like, I've got the mental feedback of my runs aren't going well, so I definitely am losing shape. Instead, I was like, I'm going to run if I feel like I can run. And I'm going to run shorter things, and I'm going to run purely off of effort. If I feel like I might be able to do something slightly faster, great. If not, this is just going to be a nice little, short, easy run. And it's going to be okay. And that's the biggest thing is, that's what It has to ultimately start with, it's going to be okay to honor what my body needs today more than I have to stick to my training plan. And that race is way too few weeks away for me to be like, all right, I'm just blowing off the training plan for the next two weeks. But that's the only option. That's literally the only option I have right now to make sure that I'm healthy by the time the race comes along. Like I don't want to lose all of December.

Angie: 23:51

Yeah. And I think that's really important because there's a lot of people that. Go the opposite way. And you used to go the opposite way. A hundred percent. if we're being honest, then that's what really led to the seizures. Is that you were honoring the training plan over your rest. I the

Kevin: 24:05

training plan over everything. bow, bow at the altar of the training plan. That's what I, that, the training plan says. Eight miles. you. I'm getting eight miles in. I'm going to drag myself through it. I'm going to be coughing and wheezing the entire time and I'm going to feel awful for the entire rest of the day. But at least I knocked off my eight miles. No, not at least I knocked off. That's the thing is. Every other thing I added in there besides eight miles coughing and wheezing the entire time Feeling terrible the whole rest of the day, you know You're not gonna feel good for the run that's on the schedule for the next day But I was honoring the training plan So if the next day said seven I was out there getting seven and if it said hit certain speeds I was hitting certain speeds. So It just got me to a point that I was so exhausted even though you know if I had a Strava I don't have a Strava, but if I had a Strava it would look good It would look like I was putting in phenomenal work, but ultimately I was just wrecking my body because I was not taking care of it.

Angie: 25:02

Yeah. And I think that's the thing that we don't always see. And I, behind the scenes of, And that's really why we want to be totally transparent with all of you and tell Kevin's story because yeah, On the outside, it looked amazing. Like here was this guy that was winning marathons and had little kids and he was, he had a job and he could do it all. there was an article in the

Kevin: 25:22

newspaper,

Angie: 25:23

plus that, But it's like, what was going on behind the scenes was that he was destroying his health. like literally brain was not functioning properly. And, so it really is that. balance that we really need to find and this balance becomes even more important as we get older because we do need more rest as we get older. Our body does not recover the same way that it used to. Our brain does not recover the same way that it used to. And so if we In the second phase of life in the second half of life that many of us are finding ourselves in, it's even more important. Like the power of rest is absolutely critical if you want to get stronger. If you want to be able to continue to train effectively in this second half of life,

Kevin: 26:09

you need the rest. Otherwise you can't possibly bring yourself to push it hard enough on the hard days. That's the thing is in college, we used to push at a pretty good effort on Monday, speed workout, Tuesday, recovery one. Speed again on Thursday and then we'd race on Saturday morning or go on a super long run on Saturday morning And it's just too much there's but

Angie: 26:31

you were 20, right? Like you were 19 and 20 years old when this is

Kevin: 26:34

happening. There's no way that I could even attempt now with a job. Like I could possibly attempt it if I could literally just sleep the entire rest of the day. Maybe I could give that a shot. I still don't think I would. I don't think that there's enough rest built into that for me right now to be able to get through the week because, you There's so much running. There's so much pounding on the body through what that schedule used to be, and I wouldn't be able to show up effectively on speed days without enough recovery. The way I train it now, I usually have two. Easy runs or one easy run in an off day between my two speed sessions of the week I make sure that I have extra time Otherwise that second speed session is not gonna be at a hard enough effort for me to actually get anything worthwhile out of it

Angie: 27:21

Yeah, and again like just being able to honor yourself I think is so important and I'm gonna go ahead and back that up with my experience this week too because I was Out of town at that business event that I went to last week, and it was one of those events that was just, it was amazing. It was like a total time warp vortex of, where you go and you lose all track of. days and times, and I got less sleep than I normally do. I, I was on a different, in a different time zone. I, it was a very like emotionally draining event, mentally and emotionally draining event. And, like the last night I was up until two because I was with all my friends and, we were all just talking and recapping and trying to, Like just soak it all in as much as we could. So I went to bed at two, I woke up at five for my flight. So I got three hours of sleep. Not so great. Like with a whole, a full day of traveling. back home. And, so when I got up, like on Monday, I was so exhausted. Like I got the kids off to school and then I went back to bed for a few hours and I specifically blocked out. I took that day off of work so that I, cause I knew that was going to happen. Like I didn't know that I was going to be able to, just go back to work. Go back to bed, but I knew that I was going to be tired. I knew that I was not going to be very productive at work. And so I gave myself that day. I didn't schedule any calls or any meetings or anything like that. And I really needed it. And then today I woke up cause Tuesdays I normally wake up early at 5 a. m. to go meet my running friends for speed work. And I woke up at five this morning and I got very loudly, my, my body was like, absolutely not don't you dare go do that. And so again, I honored my, that and I went back to bed and that was really hard for me because part of my identity, like part of the way that I, the type of person that I believe myself to be is dependable, right? Like you can always count on me. If I say I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there. if I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And so for me to cancel on my running buddies. It really takes a lot, but that was, again, going back to some of the things that I was learning of, I need to take care of myself. And sometimes that means disappointing other people. And that stinks. I really don't like that at all. And I'm going to try to not do that as much as possible. At the same time, if I really need to do that for myself, then that's what's going to need to happen. And that's, I think, one of the big things that I've come to, and that's going to be a work in progress. It's not okay, now I flipped a switch. Now I'm good. I'm just going to honor myself all the time. No problem. But it is going to be a work in progress. But it's really, Listening to my body, honoring it, and giving it what it needs so that I can show up in the best way. So I did go out for my run today after I slept a little bit, took the kids to school, went out for my run. And instead of doing five miles plus speed work, I did three and a half, nice and easy, and then put some strides on the back end of it so that I was You know, I could do however many strides I felt like I could I didn't have to push super hard on them But like I just put them at a medium to moderate effort. Maybe like a seven ish and It ended up feeling really good And I feel like I still had energy throughout the rest of the day Whereas if I would have gone out on that speed run at 5 a. m. I probably would have been Pretty darn tired the rest of the day and lacked a lot of productivity.

Kevin: 30:36

Yeah, so your training schedule is Making the transition that mine had to make seven years ago of I have to make sure that I take care of myself Otherwise, it doesn't matter how on the plan. I am I was getting objectively solid results I won a marathon but At what cost? And ultimately, that was the answer is it's not a good balance for me in my life to collect a random metal if I'm going to end up having a bunch of seizures in front of my kids. that's that is not a fair balance. That's not a good trade off. And so that's the balance that I've done for years of if I have a few days in a row that I don't get enough sleep, Then I'm just, I'm not getting up and running. I haven't gotten up for a run in a long, in a couple of weeks now, because it's just like I need to get that extra little bit of time to be able to sleep in and conveniently I'm able to fit in my runs a little bit into the afternoon. So I'm making it work, but it's not my most ideal schedule, but it's taking care of myself more than taking care of the training plan. Yeah.

Angie: 31:40

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. We invite you as, as you listen to this episode to really apply this to your life of are you honoring this law of rhythm? Are you giving yourself the rest that you need? When you are resting, are you actually resting, right? are you both physically and mentally resting? That's really important, or Are you lying in bed with your TV on or scrolling on your phone so that your body is resting But your brain is still active like start to pay attention to that because it matters. So you're like, I don't get it I'm taking rest days. I'm getting enough sleep. I'm this I'm that yeah, but are you actually resting? Are you turning your brain off? off when you're resting, and that's something that has become more and more increasingly hard for us because of all of the technology that we have in our lives. maybe take this as an invitation to put the phone down or to move the phone out of your room or to just take time away from the technology and really allow your brain some space and some time and to know that's going to feel really uncomfortable at first. Like it's really uncomfortable because those, the phones and the technology, like they're designed to get us addicted and to give us those hits of dopamine constantly. And so when we. put that away, our brain craves it. Our brain is craving those dopamine hits. So it's going to feel very uncomfortable at the beginning, but the more you do it, you're going to start to see different things open up for you. You're going to start feeling better. You're going to start to feel more clarity with, in your mental health and all of that. And I would love to hear it. if you take this on and. do this experiment, send us a DM over on Instagram at Real Life Runners and let us know how it goes for you. Because I really think this is a really critical topic, that both of us feel super passionately about.

Kevin: 33:28

You made some nice, very gentle suggestions. I would suggest that everybody should take the phone out of their room when they go to bed. Yeah. I don't think that's a gentle suggestion. Just don't have the phone in your room when you go to bed. I think that, that is a very good starting point. And, since you're going to bed, it's nice to not have the thing. I think that instead of being like, ooh, I could pick up my phone and look at something on there. No, you could actually just get some sleep. Instead of worrying about what's going on the phone, if it's not there, I think that, that's an easier starting point than saying in, in the middle of the day, I'm going to be phone free for 30 minutes. I think that's a lot more challenging than the phone out of the room to go to bed. Yeah.

Angie: 34:04

Yeah. Yeah. So let us know on Instagram tag us, with how you are prioritizing rest in your day, in your training, in your week, we'd love to hear it and to, shout you out on Instagram. So if you found this helpful, please take a minute, leave us a review on Apple podcasts or share the podcast with a friend. You can take a screenshot and share it on social media and tag us at real life runners so that we can say thank you. and as always, thanks for spending this time with us. We really appreciate it. This has been the real life runners podcast, episode number 389. Now get out there and run your life.