Fatigue

Here we are, day two of rather bizarre week of work. For most people in Australia this week has only contained two days of work, which effectively makes today Friday. Weird.

As mentioned the other day, I am off camping with the family tomorrow. The impending camping trip has had a couple of impacts on my week, one in the past and one to come.

The future impact first because that one is easy. I am going to be sitting in the bush for several days from tomorrow, so as you can imagine opportunities to update the blog will be slim. I am not even going to promise to do updates if I am able, I just won't be, simple as that. Back in action on Monday.

The the past impact is more exercise related. I am shattered tired right now. Like I said in a post a few days ago I have deliberately been loading up the first half of this week with training to make allowance for the fact that I won't be training much in the second half of the week. Turns out that I might actually be able to do some training while I am away, so it may not be as bad as I thought, however, getting out for exercise is not priority one while we are away, so from that perspective it is good to have a bit of training under my belt already.

This front loading of training has meant that I am carrying a fair bit of fatigue at the moment. While that fatigue is essentially by design, it doesn't make it any less tiring. Don't get me wrong, carrying fatigue during training is not necessarily a bad thing. In many ways you need to carry a bit of fatigue in order to be driving fitness improvements, ie you need to be working a bit above your capacity in order to increase your capacity. However, there are smart ways to be fatigued and silly ways. I wouldn't say I have crossed the line into silly fatigue at the moment, but if I kept pushing things for a few more days then I think I would be on thin ice. As it is, the fatigue is within manageable levels and will reduce rapidly while I am away camping, but it is something I need to keep an eye on and make sure I am doing all the good things with respect to recovery, sleeping well, eating well etc.

This past week has seen some great gains with respect to fitness and I have to say I am feeling the fittest I have for a while. However, the road to improved fitness is lined with fatigue and, therefore, it is a road that needs to be trod with a bit of care.