Well it's been about two weeks now and training has not progressed much. I dealt with that nagging blister for almost an entire week before being able to tolerate it enough to get back to cycling/running. It, of course, is still not healed, but I can't wait forever! Last Thursday training began to pick up again, and then on came the sickness. At first I thought it was just the allergies that are going around, which it was, but those allergies then turned into a fever, sore throat, congested head, and just about everything else I didn't want with the previous week being what it was. I felt out the training sessions like the boss suggested and the energy/will simply were not there Tuesday or Wednesday. I was able to push through my workouts on Monday and I think that may have made things worse. I'm feeling a little better now and was able to swim a bit earlier and I'm going to climb in the saddle for an "easy" spin with maybe, and I mean maybe, a shortened tempo effort.
Besides the blisters and sicknesses, training has been going very well, I just wish I could get back in a groove. It *seems* like I'm falling behind because I want to do well in my races, but don't see myself improving when I'm missing workouts because of blisters and a cold. I was reassured that my fitness would not suffer and to just feel out the workouts. It's funny how that really works, my body tells me way before my mind does if it's ready and willing to go through what Marc has lined up for me that day. Today for the swim I just shut off the clock and went by feel, it seemed more bearable.
I guess I'll just wait out the sickness and increase the work as my body feels fit each day. What's the rush anyways?
Thursday, April 10, 2008
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Hi Wes, good call on approaching your workouts like we discussed: Start very very easy and if you are feeling worse, shut it down and pack it in. You can see if your morning heart rate is elevated vs. what it's normally at, too -- if it's up 5-10bpm higher than normal, it's a sign that your body is fighting something off and it may be wise to take the day off. Definitely, if you are feeling toast then make sure you don't make things worse "pushing through the workouts" if you have symptoms of illness. Generally allergies will give you the sniffles and such, but they won't wipe you out like a cold or the flu does.
Training is like life and many other skills we want to pick up. We create schools to circumvent the "trial and error" method of learning, and it's for that reason you also hire a coach to accelerate your progress and improvement. But as with many things in life, there's no better way than the iterative process to really learn and "know" something. It's like going to the doctor - sometimes the young, fresh-out-of-college whipper snapper sounds really convincing, but usually it's the older, wiser, "seen it a million times" doc with all the experience who is able to quickly dial in on a symptom and diagnose you correctly the first time 'round.
Same thing with training: To diagnose yourself correctly is a skill -- an art -- that you improve upon over many seasons and years and which keeps refining itself as you progress. You are new to the training process and while there are many "safe" ways to avoid making an impending illness worse when you are an athlete (IE the "avoid training at all costs!!" fear-mongering hyperbole we see out there, as if it's politically incorrect to risk maximum improvement at risk of over-doing it...), there is no way to really "learn" something than by pushing limits or trying something that might be "ill advised" under different regimes.
So in The Method, you train via repetition, and as life events (including illness) phase in and out of your life and routine, over time you come to understand their effects on your training routine and results. This body of experience becomes your collective training wisdom over time -- constantly expanding, relearning forgotten things, developing new and broader perspectives, identifying patterns and anticipating more accurately over time the most appropriate response.
Ideally over time we take stock of the result or consequence of our actions and make a note for future reference and improved decision making. That is the iterative learning process, and that is the "constantly improving my training" process that The Method teaches, too.
On the blister - try putting taclcum (baby) powder in your shoes and keeping things dry that way.
Why are you in jail?!
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