A Day of Rest--A Paragraph a Day

I really wanted to go for a run or a bike ride today.  It was a beautiful afternoon when I finished work, and I could just imagine how nice it would have been to go out into the day and enjoy the weather and the warmth and the breeze.  Alas, it wasn't meant to be--my body was telling me that it was a rest day, a day when I should allow my body to recover from the runs and the bike rides of the past few days and weeks, and I've learned over the years to pay attention when it tells me such things so that I don't injure myself by carelessly running when my body was telling me it needed a rest.  So I stayed home and did some other things, and that was fine--our bodies need rest, especially when we use them regularly, and rest is an important part of any life lived fully.  Resting gives us a chance to reflect and to recover and to even build up some strength so that the next run (more than likely tomorrow afternoon) will feel even better.  Rest helps muscles to recover so that they don't hurt us the next time we run--without rest, we keep working our ways towards depletion, and that's not really a good place to be going.  So I respect the rests and my body's need for them, for I really do want to take care of this body that's been such a great gift to me for a very long time.