I had a cutback week recently. Four runs, about 65% of my normal distance for this build.
That’s the plan. Every few weeks the load drops so the body can absorb what the last few weeks put into it. The fitness doesn’t get built during the work. It gets built during the recovery from the work.
I expected the voice to show up and read the lighter week as proof of something. You’re slipping. You’re slow. It said nothing. Quiet all week.
What showed up instead was restlessness. My body was supposed to be resting and I kept hunting for something to do with it.
Truth be told, it was a little boring. Then the build started again and the excitement came right back, which tells me something I’d rather not look at head on.
Part of me likes the load. The load gives me a job. When the miles are high and the calendar is full, I know what I’m for. Take a third of that away and I’m standing there with extra time and energy, wondering what to do with myself. Boring is what it feels like when there’s less to hold up.
The quiet came from the same place. There was no number to defend, no finish time for the voice to grade. A lighter week used to be ammunition. This time it was just a lighter week. A small voice is still muttering about the next few build weeks, but I’m enjoying the runs more because nothing is riding on them.
Marriages need cutback weeks too, and most of us only get them by accident. The heavy season ends, the house gets lighter, and the extra room fills with whatever’s closest. A new project. The phone. Two schedules running side by side. Nobody chose that stretch, so nobody protects it, and nothing gets absorbed.
A cutback is chosen. It’s lighter on purpose, with a reason, and someone guarding it. That’s the difference between rest and drift.
The house is lighter now. Pam’s mom is in assisted living, our kids are at college, and the emergency is behind us. That week we found a free evening to binge some Ted Lasso, which hadn’t happened in a while. Nothing got fixed or accomplished, and that was the point. It was a small taste of what a chosen cutback looks like, and a chance for Pam and me to do more of it on purpose.
Protect some space and call it rest. Don’t fill it just because the quiet feels strange.
The restlessness will come back. When it does, the adult move is to ask what the anxiety is telling me before I hand it a project. I’d rather notice it than obey it.
The build is back on and I’m glad. But the rest weeks are where the work sinks in, and I’d like to get as good at those as I am at the hard ones.
When the load lifts, what do you reach for first? And what is it covering?
