When to take a rest day

I'm no stranger to the idea of rest days. But actually taking them is rare for me. Just the thought of a day without exercise makes me twitch. ;)

Yesterday, the stars alligned and pretty much forced a rest day. Tuesday is generally my "easy" rest(ish) day, but I had plans to get in about 45 minutes of lap swimming in the early morning.

Well, my alarm wasn't set correctly so I woke up at 6:30 instead of 5:50am. I opted to do 25 minutes of detox yoga rather than attempt to race to the pool and back and make it to work on time. All day, my legs were feeling surprisingly tired from Monday's easy 4 miler.

But I was still banking on an after work, pre girls' night swim. After finishing a few last work emails, it was 5:40pm and I realized there was no time for a decent swim and my legs and body were pretty exhausted anyway. So, I didn't swim. I listened to a book on tape, ate some good food with friends and went to bed at a decent hour.

While resting may be the last thing your brain wants to do, sometimes your body needs it more than you know. I'm confident that extra rest was helpful to me, but it continues to be a struggle to find a balance between training hard and allowing my body the time it wants to recover. But today, today is NOT a rest day.

Today: a.m. spinning (30 min), lunch run, Lifeforce Fit
Thurs: swimming (45 min), running (3 mi easy)
Friday: rest?
Saturday: Beaver Freezer Tri!

How do you handle rest days? Do you do active recovery or do you take the day completely off? Sometimes I totally forget about rest days until I realize I haven't had one in a few weeks. Oops!