I wish my mind and body would just get along with each other
In rallying we have a saying – it’s called getting your “A’s” mixed up. That is, your ambition and ability. Things tend to go south if your ambition gets ahead of your ability!
I’m finding a very similar scenario in the triathlon/ironman world. On paper and in my head, my plan for the week looks great. When it comes to reality, it’s my body which has a hard time keeping up.
After feeling rubbish last week, this week things definitely turned a corner and I felt like I was back to it properly. However, by Thursday the sore throat had come and I’ve had a mild cold for the last 5 days.
Seeing as though my mind and body aren’t great friends at the moment, my mind won and I decided to keep training through. You’d think I’d learn, right? In saying that, I don’t think my flu has gotten worse and I feel like it’s mild enough to keep pushing through at a lower intensity. Sure, my performance isn’t great, but I actually feel better being active, even if it’s not going ‘all out’.
I feel as though with this type of training, if you wait to feel refreshed and perfect every time you go out the door, there is no way in hell you’ll ever be able to get enough volume in! There’s a balance to be struck training at some degree of fatigue, whilst obviously avoiding overtraining.
I found this Training Peaks article by Lynda Wallenfels pretty helpful. It gives tips on illness prevention, at what point to rest and then when to resume:
“Just how sick do you have to be before holding off on training becomes the correct decision? Any illness symptoms are reason enough to avoid training hard. I am okay with my clients completing a recovery-paced training session, keeping heart rate in zone 1, if all symptoms are above the neck. These include a mild sore throat, stuffy nose and headaches. Light exercise may be helpful in this instance.”
You can read the full article here:
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/the-athlete-s-survival-guide-to-the-cold-and-flu-season/
So, I suppose this week has been a bit of an experiment into how far I can push my ‘struggling to keep up’ body, whilst still getting a good training effect and not overtraining. No verdict on the experiment yet, but so far so good…. I think….
This week’s summary. More duration, but a bit less intensity towards the end of the week:
