Sophie Caldwell: How to Spend an Off Day

Monday, June 17, 2013

How to Spend an Off Day

Off days are tricky because it's hard to find the balance between allowing yourself to rest and recover and avoiding entering a lethargic state where you turn into a total couch potato. I've had off days where I haven't done any training, but I reach 9 PM and realize I have been on my feet all day long and even though none of it was considered exercise, I probably wasn't getting proper recovery. I've also had off days where I sleep in and then 9 PM rolls around and I'm still in my pajamas. While I'm definitely letting my body recover on these days, I often find that I'm more tired at the end of the day than I was at the beginning. In my mind, the perfect off day is spent with plenty of time off my feet, but still getting outside or moving around enough to wake the body up. This can be done by going for a short hike, doing some yoga, or walking around town, but I think it's important to get out of the house or at least out of your pajamas! Yesterday was a close-to-perfect off day for me. After a relaxing morning of sleeping in (until 8:30!), drinking plenty of coffee, and relaxing inside, Jessie and I went on an adventure with our friends Maddie Talkington and alpine skiers Keith Moffat and Nick Daniels. We hiked up to beautiful Lake Mary in Brighton and spent a couple hours relaxing in the sun before heading back down and making a delicious home-cooked meal with our coaches. It was only a mile out to the lake and Maddie and Jessie were wearing flip-flops to ensure we were take our sweet time to get there. As it turns out, you're not actually allowed to swim in Lake Mary, but the boys may or may not have stretched the rules. Here are some photos from out adventure!

We brought water guns that we failed to use, but they were pretty cool props

rock lounging

Maddie, Sophie, and Nick

Not a bad view

Hiking in

When we got back to our condo, we started preparing for the homemade feast we were making that night. The menu consisted of Jason Cork's homemade pasta and cream pea sauce, Jessie's sundried tom-ah-toe (yes, that's the proper way to pronounce it) basil bread, salad, and a strawberry rhubarb crisp. Cork keeps on impressing with his cooking and baking skills and we had a delicious dinner. We went to bed happy, full, and well rested!

flattening out the pasta

cutting the pasta

Andy just left to fly back to VT and Liz gets back to Park City tonight. Everything is still going well and rookie camp starts on Wednesday night then I fly back east this weekend!