Time for a break

Europe has officially gone off-duty. Like a magician's trick, but instead of pulling rabbits out of hats, we've all vanished into beach chairs and mountain cabins, leaving our out-of-office messages to do the heavy lifting.

It's August, which means half the continent is pretending to read novels while actually scrolling Instagram, and the other half is stuck transporting millions through the major airports or putting in overtime in restaurants and bars. I used to judge this collective surrender to leisure- the American in me genuinely confused by how an entire continent could just... stop.

The past few months of my calendar looked a bit like a lost game of Tetris. Classic overachiever nonsense, really- the kind where you mistake being busy for being important. So here I am, joining the great European exodus. Taking a proper break.

As athletes, we're programmed to believe that more is always better. More miles, more hours, more suffering. Rest days are grudgingly accepted as necessary evils, but only after two easy sessions and a protein shake. But here's what twenty years of endurance sports finally taught me: it`s a lot better to be five percent underdone, than one percent overdone. Sometimes the most courageous thing an athlete can choose to do is... nothing.

Not the recovery nothing where you're foam rolling and meal prepping and fine tuning your sleep protocols. The real nothing. The scary nothing where you don't track anything, don't measure anything, and definitely don't post about your "active recovery hike" on social media. Where you trust that your fitness won't evaporate if you spend a week reading terrible novels and eating ice cream for breakfast.

It takes a special kind of courage to step away when you're not injured, not burned out, not forced into it by circumstances. To voluntarily hit pause when everything is humming along nicely. To trust that the work you've done will hold, that the habits you've built won't crumble, that you won't somehow forget how to be an athlete if you take a weeks off.

I used to think this made me soft. I´ve had far more forced summer breaks than chosen ones. Now I think it might be the most athletic thing I do all year.

The French have a phrase: "l'art de ne rien faire”- the art of doing nothing. This concept has always seemed pretty foreign for someone whos default is slightly over-caffeinated and self optimizing. But watching especially my Spanish and Italian friends decide that August is for slowing down, not speeding up, I'm starting to see the wisdom.

I’m feeling confident the world won’t end if I don't optimize my morning routine for exactly 8 days.

The rest of the year is for pushing boulders up mountains. August is for remembering why the mountain was worth climbing in the first place. See you on the other side of this surrender to doing absolutely nothing productive.

For my friends in the Southern Hemisphere- as you were. Not long and it’s your turn.

Jan.

PS- I´ll sign off with my favourite summer playlist on Spotify.

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