I’m not much of a Sabbath person in general — not being one of the People of the Book and all.<\/p>\n
But, I did rest physically today. I’d worked out well<\/em> all last week. I did three days of good solid swimming interspersed with three days of kickin’ weight training. I planned to rest today.<\/p>\n Last winter I was getting back into swimming while rehabbing knee surgery. My physical therapist had cautioned me that while I was antsy as hell to get moving, I had been through some relatively major surgery. Doing my therapy and being faithful with it was great, certainly. But when I started hitting the pool again, I was cautioned to work up and refrain from swimming on consecutive days until I got my strength back.<\/p>\n I followed medical advice better than I usually do after the surgery. It was an elective procedure1<\/sup> and I figured with all the pain in the ass that I went through to get it done, I was damned if I was gonna risk a graft failure from breaking Rule One. Know what, it really did<\/em> take awhile for me to get my strength back.<\/p>\n I’m not rehabbing anything now, which is nice. Even so, I’m taking the lesson I learned about the importance of appropriate rest to heart. I say “appropriate rest” because there’s a line between getting enough of a workout, driving yourself into the ground, or wimping out then claiming virtue for “getting enough rest”. In my case, I’m a writer. I sit on my butt all day long. My leisure activities are nearly as sedentary. I’ve spent the time today when I wasn’t working knitting. (Almost done on a kickin’ sweater with mjollnirs! Elizabeth Zimmerman’s seamless yoke sweater is da bomb!)<\/p>\n I’ve been feeling antsy. You know you get when you get into a project and excited about it. Thing is, appropriate rest is part of keeping the body healthy. I’m feeling a bit like a racehorse, pawing at the ground, tossing my head, ready to go! go! go!<\/p>\n Which is not a bad way to start the week, I think.<\/p>\n 1<\/sup> You can live fine without your anterior cruciate ligament. You just lose some stability under physical stress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m not much of a Sabbath person in general — not being one of the People of the Book and all. But, I did rest physically today. I’d worked out well all last week. I did three days of good solid swimming interspersed with three days of kickin’ weight training. I planned to rest today. … <\/p>\n