Wag more

Mans best friends are master resters. Able to sleep, stretch and be available for explosive blasts of speed and power at a moments notice, dogs instinctively understand that if that cat is going to be treed today (or if that tire is going to be chased) some serious couch time is required.

Likewise our training hard is hard. Resting adequately is harder because it's soooo passive. I wish we could see into our cellular structure and watch the white corpuscles help re-build muscle fiber and protein molecules stack themselves in proper sequence. In 3-D Blue Ray. Maybe then we would find recovery a little easier to manage. Take a nap on the front porch in the afternoon with one eye open.

It is so much easier to over train, go back too soon and suddenly find ourselves with nagging injuries or constantly runny noses. Oh, and the downside of over-training? Craving sweets, constant dehydration and irritability? Worth it?

Sometimes. There is a time and a place for over-distance training. A lot of it is mental. Once you've done a century ride, 100 miles suddenly loses its ability to intimidate. If you have done an Ironman, you must still respect the distance, but you are no longer awed by those capable of 140.6. Although I am still in awe of those who can do it in less than none hours.

The idea here is to make sure that you have a solid rest and recovery strategy that mirrors your training intensity and duration. Conventional wisdom suggests that we alternate hard sessions with longer, yet slower ones, and alternating disciplines via cross training so as not to continually tax the same muscle groups. And ramp it up slowly.

That is a truck load of information. Throw all that in a blender along with your personal and professional responsibilities and you barely have time for any fun. And fun, my dear friends, is important.

Let's find ways to make the mundane more enjoyable. Can we tweak our attitudes to see a 5K run more as a celebration than drudgery? Can 1,000 meters in the pool be more like play than penance? Our long rides not win-at-all-cost races? And my personal favorite: Can we make an hour of high intensity indoor cycling the highlight of the day instead of something that feels court ordered or doctor advised?

Can we really convert the way we look at exercise and training and make it more fun instead of more work? More play as compared to say, an hour of overtime in the cubicle?

I hope we can. Is there any harm in trying? I wonder sometimes what would happen if we, the collective we, decided one Saturday morning in the fall that, truly, we should wag more and bark less.

Dubs 1 is the mascot of the University of Washington Huskies. They need some serious waggin (amid some barks) against the UCLA Bruins today in the Rose Bowl. Go Dawgs!