already<\/em> under a significant stress load. \u00a0So by piling on more and more training stress, on top of your every day stress, your body can't recover and eventually it crashes.<\/p>\nNow if only we noticed when our body told us it was unhappy…<\/p>\n
Signs and symptoms<\/h3>\n
As I said early in this post, I had plenty of time to think about this topic while on a recent training ride, and I think it's appropriate that I explain the\u00a0significance of that ride.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Very recently I put in a couple of huge training weeks, then took a couple days off to allow my body ample time to recover. \u00a0Right in the middle of those two training weeks, I had to deal with a significant family event which took a fair amount of my attention, and unknowingly, my body's ability to recover. \u00a0There was a significant stress put on my body at that point, which was unknown to me at the time. \u00a0Consequent training left me tired, run down, grumpy, and sleeping poorly. \u00a0Not taking the cues, I continued to train. \u00a0I made long road trips to deal with family issues during which I ate poorly, drank too much and slept little. \u00a0Yet still I kept riding and training, bluffing that my body would just do as I told it. \u00a0Eventually, my body decided it had enough and I injured myself.<\/p>\n
My body forced my hand; it called my bluff and forced me off the bike.<\/p>\n
Now, after a full week completely off the bike, treating my back and doing nothing but recovering, I've just returned to the road. \u00a0I've just now managed to get back on the bike, having resolved a few external life stresses and allowed my body to recover and rebuild. \u00a0I felt strong, my legs felt powerful and my mind was able to focus on my training as opposed to wandering off to other things. \u00a0Compared to a few weeks ago, it was like riding in a different body.<\/p>\n
The moral of the story?<\/p>\n
Listen to your body. \u00a0Consider that if you're feeling bad on your ride that it may be a bad day or it may be your body telling you something. \u00a0Step back and take a long hard look at everything in your life and ask yourself if it may be more beneficial to take some time off instead of loading up even more training stress. \u00a0You may just be able to stop your body from calling your bluff and pulling the plug for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stop and think for just a minute: how long has your season been? \u00a06 months? \u00a07 months? \u00a08 months? \u00a0Here in the northeast, we were blessed (or maybe cursed) with a lack of winter, so we’ve really been riding and training since December of last year. \u00a0That’s a LONG season, especially when you consider that many cyclists are just now gearing up for the impending cyclocross season, which will extend through December in most places. \u00a0Imagine a periodized training plan with peaks and valleys, builds and tapers, for NEARLY A YEAR!! \u00a0That’s a LONG season, and it’s not easy to pull off. \u00a0In fact, I found that to be the case in recent weeks. Why do I bring up this topic? \u00a0Well, today I spent quite a bit of time thinking about it while on a training ride. \u00a0I had enough time to think through the last few weeks and gained some insight into my training and life. Maybe you’ll gain some insight into your own training and stress as well….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,21,38],"tags":[175,91,69,68],"yst_prominent_words":[2690,427,2693,2699,2701,2688,2700,459,2691,2697,2689,2694,2687,2695,268,686,386,2696,2698,2692],"wppr_data":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1534"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9387,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1534\/revisions\/9387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1534"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tailwind-coaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}