Essay: On the Rest Day Battle

(2020) If someone can let me know how many calories a typist burns, I would be appreciative. There is a requirement to wade through the deeper meaning of a rest day when all four of the training plans say something different. “I’ve come so far!” one might proclaim regarding the uptick in fitness. The rest day has strange ideas.

For starters there is always confusion. “I should be gearing up to ride,” one may think. The gaping hole in the day’s schedule can be easily plugged by an out-and-back stretching six hours. No bother, there are other things to focus on. Perhaps there is a lawn to mow that will take six hours. It’s not riding a bike right? The rest day only deals with riding. Now would be a decent time to complete an FTP test to see how the numbers are coming along. FTPs are tests, not training.

Then there is the question of what is rest. How many watts are being lost by sitting on the couch? I know in July I will lose a field sprint because of this precise day of couch surfing! Putting live races on the television does not calm the impulsive voices desperately seeking anything to mimic a day on the bike. Instead of lying on the couch, a brisk walk around the house will do wonders. But wait! How many calories will that leave me deficient tomorrow for my grand make-up day today? 

Let’s not overlook eating because a rest day is where a carefully laid-out performance regimen can come undone. While sitting on the couch those bags of hard pretzels and that sack of potato chips are hailing us from the kitchen. Those aren’t in the Feed Zone Cookbook snack section! Maybe a quick ride around every single road in the neighborhood will be a distraction. Riding the neighborhood is touring, not training. Speaking of eating the house needs food. I will ride the bike to the community grocer ten miles away. That falls under transportation, not ‘training’.

All this confusion is overstimulating and producing drowsiness. A nap at this time will certainly be the end of the race season. Over before it started, certainly. The guys who win races are not napping right now in the ramp-up season. If I avoid a nap now, on this resty of rest days, I will be the trembling storm of a rider who annihilates the Cat 3 field in that race in central Pennsylvania with six pre-registered riders. Crossing nap off the list reveals the day is almost completely wasted by idleness. 

Then a new concern displays itself in water consumption. Because the focus has been elsewhere all day, water, preferably triple distilled Antarctic cave water has not been consumed. This will lead to dehydration. Dehydration equates to illness. Riding means stronger immune systems. Being dehydrated basically hands us an illness that will force me bed-bound all day to worry about the robotic humans who are riding circles around the neighborhood, taunting me with strategically timed Di2 shifts. Amidst the fever haze I will hear the zip-zip-zip shifting to let me know I just fell back twenty more places in every race because of rest day illness collected a couple of days prior.

The evening rolls around and no friends were contacted. The lawn was never mowed because of the internal arguing with ourselves about becoming calorically deficient with chores and the Real Feel temperature outside (which is always hotter than they predicted). Instead of a trembling, run-in cyclist worn out from a training ride, we are an anxious broken arrow standing in a dark living room with a remote in our hand yelling incoherently that the family-sized sack of potato chips has no power over us. Even the dog has given up being worried about the outbursts, no longer tucking his tail between his legs in concern. We conclude we have defeated the Rest Day and collapse on the bed two hours later than normal, having accomplished nothing.

Weeks later, after a couple rounds of - victorious - battle with rest days, we are then dropped by a group of club riders because the powder was wet. There was nothing left in the legs. Clearly the training schedule is to blame. Let us order another training plan, rounding the total out to five, one with no rest days whatsoever, and suddenly the season ends with overuse injury or anemia or a general lack of friends or all three. 

Exhaustion forces us to lie on the couch, swearing off bike race footage on account of being burnt out by the general topic, and the crinkle of three empty bags of potato chips wake us up each time we roll onto them. It is dusk and friends are texting, inviting us out down the street at the local pub. Tomorrow is scheduled to be beautiful weather. Save us a seat. We got lots to talk about. But beware, we are getting up early to ride tomorrow.