One of my favorite quotes is: “Life is a marathon, not a sprint.” This is a season for me of learning how to embrace balance, both in movement and in rest.
Running is something I started four years ago, and I'm running my fourth half-marathon next week. I'm fortunate to be able to run again, as last year, training for a 10k, I really injured myself.
Overtraining.
Our bodies are truly amazing; they do so much for us. Yet we are not invincible—life can quickly show us how fragile we really are.
I pushed too hard and didn’t listen to my body, and it forced me to stop running for months. Relentlessly reaching for my new goal, I ignored the obvious signals my body was telling me to slow down.
Learning to Listen.
Only recently I'm getting back to my previous pacing—a year and a half later. I'm learning to train smarter, learning to LISTEN when my body is talking to me. Sure, it's true that we need to push ourselves at times to achieve the big goals we've made, but we also need to be realistic about basic physical needs. Often, we push back on the need to rest.
We truly need the balance of rest, nutrition, sleep, and mental fitness to run all the marathons in our lives. Let's live in balance to finish the marathon well.
~ Anonymous