The time between

Pretty tired today. When I got up to train this morning I very nearly headed back to bed. Even as I was walking out the door I was tempted to turn back around. The only thing that kept me going out the door was the fact that it was a glorious winter morning for exercise, not too cold, no wind, perfect.

As always once I was out and moving I was glad I made the effort. It is always the way, once I am training the tiredness always fades away, just a case of getting out the door.

In my case this morning the tiredness is really just from training. Sort of nice to have training related fatigue for once rather than just being tired because I haven't had enough sleep or am sick or something like that. The last two weeks I have actually been able to get in about as much training as I have wanted (perhaps even more) so while I am starting to feel good and fit, I am also starting to feel pretty darn tired.

Not that the amount of exercise I am doing is particularly large, it is still a much smaller load than I used to do (thank goodness), it is just a significant amount of exercise for the level of fitness I have at the moment. If I am careful with my recovery and keep on listening to my body then the amount of training that  am doing is sustainable and as I get fitter it should get easier. Being careful with my recovery and listening to my body are the difficult bits.

In terms of recovery, my main focus is on sleep. Getting enough sleep. I am a big believer that the best recovery tool that we have is sleeping, I am pretty sure the science backs that up too. It is very easy to not get enough sleep and that just makes the fatigue of training worse, not to mention that with a lack of sleep comes increased risk of illness, injury etc. Good quality and sufficient sleep can make a huge difference to being able to get up day after day and sustainability maintain a good quality of training. Critically important.

The other thing that makes a difference is diet. I have had a particularly bad diet today (too much tasty food at work), but on the whole eating a balanced diet, some carbs, some protein, some oily fish etc can really help the quality of your recovery time. It doesn't have to be rocket science and it doesn't need to be the latest fad, just a sensible, balanced diet. Heading off to your friendly neighbourhood nutritionist to get some advice is always money well spent in my mind and will really help you dial in your recovery.

When I was training full time I used to use other recovery strategies such as regular stretching, regular massages, compression etc. I have become pretty slack on most of those techniques, and to be honest the amount of training I am doing probably doesn't justify regular massages, but they are all effective techniques for getting the most out of recovery. I really should get back in the habit of the stretching though, that one is free and very easy to fit into the normal daily routine.

Recovery is often the forgotten poorer cousin in the world of training. We always focus on the time and volume spent training, the miles done on the bike, the speed of our running etc, we often forget about the bits in between. However, without good quality recovery the training simply won't happen, or it won't happen well. Really it is just as important as the quality of the exercise we are doing. We ignore it at our peril.