Today it is two weeks since I ran the New York City Marathon. To mark the occasion I went for a 20 minute unscheduled run. I ran just as it was getting dark, a bright wedge of moon slung in the sky, and I felt great. It's been a good rest. I didn't do much but walk and a few pool runs for a whole week, then I gradually started running a bit this week, keeping it very light and very short.

I don't think Lance figures I can last more that about two weeks without running or training anyway. He almost fell off the sofa when I said I was going to take a big break after NYC. "That'll last about 2 weeks"' he laughed.

But I am not going to launch into full training tomorrow. I am going to be clever and take my downtime from training and racing. It is definitely something I have had to practice. Resting while I was pregnant was easy, but resting for the sake of resting has taken some work. I'm very good at hanging up the bike and extremely good and letting the bathing suit dry out, but stopping running? That just feels plain unnatural.

I won't race for a while and in another couple of weeks, I will start building into longer endurance runs and increasing my volume. I was talking to a young athlete in the triathlon development squad and he mentioned, with a big smile, how excited he was for next season. I thought that was great. Even though the excitement was not focussed at any one race, he felt hopeful and positive about racing after a winter of training.

Sometimes unfocussed enthusiasm and joy for what you do is important. That's why I went and ran tonight. Not because I was training for anything in particular, but because I wasn't training for anything in particular. It's great to have a part of the season where individual training sessions don't mean much, where you go run in an unstructured way (sometimes I leap up steep hills because it's fun, or break into sudden fast strides ), and just relax a bit from performance.

Lucy