The First of Many Knockbacks

In my lost blog you remember I finished by talking about things knocking me off course.

Well, guess what! Something just has - ’a winter cold’ and with it I now have a chest infection! It is my own stupid fault for trying to train when the cold hit me instead of resting! Why did I do that!?

After a period of rest (which I have just enjoyed from the end of last season) it is not uncommon to get a cold, or a virus when you start training, so this is not a massive surprise, but it is a frustration.

I had just enjoyed 4 weeks full and complete rest following my qualifying race in Wales in September. Chris (my coach) said to rest up and just do what I felt like I wanted to do. That means if you wanna run, you can run, but don’t wear a heart rate monitor, or worry about how fast you run. No targets, just relax and enjoy it (if that’s possible!). This is a period of rest and recovery between the end of last season and the start of the next seasons ATP (the Annual Training Plan) just in case you’d forgot J.  

Anyway I decided to rest and do nothing as I was very tired from a long season and last year was my first full season in the sport. (Very wise - that took some discipline from me I can tell you! Although not getting up every morning at 5.30am was bliss!!!)

In this rest period Chris and I had already sat down and mapped out the ATP and you will remember from the race dates in my ‘road ahead’ blog that my first ‘A’ race will be the European Champs in April next year, so 24 weeks back from that is more or less now! Training needs to start!! Only 24 weeks to peak!

Getting back into the training routine was a shock to the system with a 5.30am alarm call! Chris had set out the first 6 weeks of the training plan. It’s base phase, (high volume, low intensity) so this involves lots of long slower runs, swims and low heart rate sessions on the bike (I’ll explain more at a later date about training with heart rate zones). The first week he has been nice and kind to me (well he calls it kind!) and I am scheduled to train for 10 ½ hours that week. “just easing you back in gently (he said!) hmmmmm

The first few days of training go pretty well given the break and then the ‘sniffles’ start! Now the best thing to do would be to just rest up and relax and let your body fight it properly yes? The problem with exercise is that whilst it does you good it also weakens the immune system. Now the immune system is under attack from the cold, so I decide the best thing to do would be to ‘hit it some more’ by training. I know the best thing to do is not to train and just rest, but I carry on! Why oh why!?

This is the hard part, giving in! You see in my sport I am accustomed to pushing myself to the limit, when I race and I get off the bike and onto that run, every part of my body hurts, every part of my mind tells me to stop, but I carry on. I have to block out the pain, I train myself to think beyond it. So, when a cold comes along, I treat it the same. I know I shouldn’t and if I was talking to another athlete, or my training partner I would say ‘hey, rest up your body needs it’! But the determination that I train myself to have that will not let anything stop me completing my target kicks in and all rationale thought goes out of the window!

I see every session as a challenge and I don’t like to miss sessions. I get stressed when I miss sessions and I worry about my fitness level dropping even though I know it won’t!! It’s not an easy thing to do to ‘self analyse’ and tell yourself ‘not to do this session today’. I get feelings of guilt and that just makes the problem worse.

This is where having a coach is great but it has to be a coach you have full trust in and I have a very good coach! Chris is excellent at balancing things out for me. Problem was I never told him until the cold was 4 days in and I had trained all 4 days. When I tell him he said ‘One of the downsides of starting back training, take the rest of the week off and make sure you have got rid of it properly’. That is exactly the kind of emotionally detached perspective I need. No way would I say that to myself! The problems was it was too late, I trained on it to the point I was so run down that the cold has now turned into a chest infection. After a visit to the docs I am now on anti-biotics and not able to train for a week!

The first ‘knock’ in the training calendar has arrived after only 1 week, but I am sure it will be the first of many!

Better is happens now instead of 2 weeks before the Euro Champs were Chris’s words! Rest up and let’s start back next week………