Recovery Motivation - How do you get there?

[CreakyCrank]

I have a feeling that I'm not alone here, but maybe some of you all have ideas on how to improve in this area.  I have a hard time taking a day off, or even having a recovery day.  I know that I should do more recovery and rest days, I know that I should stretch more... but I just don't do it.  I keep seeing my Relative Effort numbers in Strava (and my Weekly Intensity), and pushing myself to constantly increase them... which (eventually) leads to some form of injury (pulled achilles, knee pain, etc.) - forcing a long break from the activities I love.  I just find it so hard to take a rest day (I end up feeling like I'm lazy if I do).

Q: How do you motivate yourself to rest and recover? 

[sebreens]

What helps me is to plan beforehand which days I am going to work out and which days are going to be rest days. When I have them planned in I don't feel lazy at all. I know that I am following my plan and that doing a workout on that day would make my tempo workouts worse. Maybe this helps 🙂