Rest Day

A quiet sort of day today.

The coming week is taking a bit of mental adjustment and some changes in attitude which I am struggling with.

The absolute importance of training is fairly hard wired into a lot of us. We know that in order to be successful in our sport we must train. All day, every day. Train, train, train. Sometimes I wonder which comes first, does triathlon attract the sort of personality that is drawn to obsessive training, or do we start triathlon and then learn the habit of obsessive training. A bit of both I suspect. For me it is mostly from column A.

Either way, once you get entrenched in the habit, it is very hard to switch that part of the brain off, even when deep down you know that training may not be in your best interest, or is perhaps not all that necessary at the moment. I had a great talk to some people last night about life after high level sport and they said switching off that part of the brain was one of the biggest adjustments they had to make. Learning to silence the voice that tells them that they should be out training. Knowing it was okay to not be training.

A couple of other things they said were hard to adjust to were:

• not being able to push hard when training; and
• having to let people pass you when you are training.

But they are struggles for another day.

Today's struggle was accepting that getting out and training today was not required, or not even a particularly good idea.

I haven't resigned myself to not doing high level sport ever again but I have to admit that trying to stick to a normal training regime at the moment is unnecessary and probably not the smartest idea. The reality is that until I have had the ablation and got the all clear from the Doctor, then training has to stop being one of my top priorities. At the very least, the next little while is going to require some time off training as I go to hospital and recover. Getting back into training after the ablation is going to require starting from a very low level of fitness again. Missing a session or two (or more) before going to hospital probably isn't to make that much difference to the process of rebuilding fitness. If I get the chance to rebuild fitness after the ablation, it is going to be a long road no matter what I do now.

Probably more significant than the above is that training obsessively at the moment is potentially a little harmful, which I was reminded of when I was riding yesterday. I went out on the bike with the intention of doing a few hours. If I could hit 100km I was going to be pretty happy with that. I have found over the past couple of weeks that I am okay with a couple of hours of training a day, but more than that tends to be a struggle, which is exactly what I found yesterday.

When I started the session I was already feeling a bit iffy. I think by yesterday morning I was a bit fatigued from the week of training. My heart wasn't feeling particularly comfortable and I was struggling to keep my heart rate under control. All the same I got through a couple of hours reasonably well. At that point I considered heading home, but I really wanted to get another hour or so done so I pushed on. After 2 and a half hours though the wheels really started to fall off. I got to a point where I could barely peddle without my heart rate heading north of 140bpm. This was pushing close to the area that the Dr Stobie told me to avoid. I got home, but I did not feel good doing it.

Getting a much needed break

The ride was a reminder of just what this heart condition can mean. I am used to ignoring physical discomfort, but this was a situation where that was simply not a good idea. Pushing on and pushing through is not something I should be doing at the moment.

Having that lesson emphasized to me yesterday made training this morning seem a lot less important. In fact it made training this morning seem like a plain poor idea. Physically I was still feeling much the same as I was before the ride yesterday. I was reasonably sure that 'pushing on' like yesterday was going to give the same result. Staying at home and resting seemed a whole lot smarter.

That isn't to say that I am planning to cease training until the ablation, I am hoping to get out on the bike tomorrow in fact. But until the procedure I am going to be a lot more selective in what I do and when I do it. I am also going to be listening to my body very carefully as I train. If the body tells me that it can't train while maintaining an acceptable heart rate, then I am not going to be asking it too.

Simple as that.