It’s been a challenging week, but such an important one as I’ve learnt more new lessons that I hope I can hold onto as I continue to develop as a triathlete.

I woke up on Monday morning feeling rubbish and for a couple of days continued to go downhill physically and mentally. I was struggling with an overwhelming lethargy, a grogginess as I wasn’t sleeping well, an aching body and a sense of not been in focus. Everything was fuzzy and the physical niggles that I’ve been dealing with in my right hip and left achilles just suddenly seemed to be much more intense (they weren’t, it just felt like it).

Now, over the weekend I’d decided that this week was going to be a big training week. I’d recovered (or so I thought from Windsor) and with no business deadlines to get in my way I was going to focus on putting together some strong training as I build up to the next part of the season which is going to be about racing longer. So waking up feeling rubbish wasn’t a great start. Not being able to put a label on it made it more difficult for me to accept that there was some real going on and that I wasn’t just making an excuse to forgo training.

Unlike the normal me, I made the smart decision, took the day off and replaced training with rest but this only seemed to make things worse. A chat with Coach Annie the next day helped and she reassured me that taking a few more days to let my body heal itself was what I needed. Now, getting Coach’s approval to ease back is crucial for me to get my head right and in doing this it freed me up to reframe the way I saw the week. I was still going to train hard but rather than these sessions being swim, bike, run sets my training was now going to be based around lying down, stretching, foam rolling, reading. The time I had planned for training was still going to be used but in a different way.

One of the things I read was this brilliant article by Brett Sutton and it really resonated with me. http://trisutto.com/?s=ability+to+adapt

Brett really understands the Age Grouper psyche and in his article he identifies the very common challenge for successful people of juggling multiple important balls that include career, family, friendships, sport. (Maybe its part of the appeal of triathlon that it involves yet more juggling). We do often fall victim to the delusion of wanting it all,  thinking that we can fit it all in and that is probably the driver behind the 3.30am turbo session that Brett alludes to. He is quite right to point out the madness of it as it will have a negative impact down the line. We probably all know this, but need reminding of it so that we can change our behavior when its getting out of control. Hence the importance of a coach.

However, there is something else that is going on inside the Age Grouper psyche, I think, and this relates to the misguided view that we are supposed to be superhuman. Our contemporaries and colleagues admire us for our energy and invincibility and therefore we are not supposed to have bad days at work, at home, at play. We are not allowed to have days when we are off colour. We are supposed to set an example.

The dreaded “Man flu” is one thing and being injured is part “badge of honour”, part “comes with the territory”, but having a non specific sense of not being right is seen as not an excuse for not continuing to live our lives at 100 miles an hour, 24/7.

And that’s where we get it wrong. We wont be super humans unless we listen to our bodies and know when we are in danger of tipping ourselves over the edge.

There is a difference between the pleasurable fatigue the body knows when it has put in a block of hard training and the sense of lethargy, the aching deep in the bones and the general weariness that are signs that we are putting ourselves in danger. We need to learn to recognize this difference. If we can, then we will know when to step back and adapt and we can work towards being super humans rather than chasing the madness of superhuman status.

So, to build on Bretts mirror conversation. Lets really take a look long at that person reflected in the mirror and ask “what is my body telling me today and do I need to adapt my training ?”

By replacing swim bike run for a few days with lie, roll, stretch I’m now really alive again and enjoyed a lovely run along river this morning.

Long may I continue to listen to and trust in what my body is telling me!

Thanks Annie, thanks Brett.