Step back

Well the title of that last post was luckily fortuitous, being titled Break Time and then me taking a break by missing a post last night. Handy.

The break wasn't caused by anything exceptionally dire, simply by a desire to spend a bit of time with my family after work yesterday. It has been one of those weeks where, by the end of the day yesterday all I wanted to do was sit still and hang out. Which is what I did.

The plan had been to go for a run and do my blog etc, but none of those things took place and I was completely okay with that. Sitting around with my kids felt like a pretty good Plan B.

For myself this change is probably the most significant from when I was racing properly. Back then nothing stood in the way of training, I mean nothing. I may not be as fit as I was then, but I am not sure that approach was necessarily superior. The current approach where I train when it works, but I am happy to step back and rest when that is what my body or mind needs is probably a healthier one if I am honest.

It is this challenging balance that I try to help my athletes achieve. Where that balance sits will be different for every athlete, but it is an important point to find. Doing anything obsessively is not healthy, even when the activity is a healthy one like exercise. Some people's lifestyles will tolerate a lot of training and some will tolerate a less, but finding the healthy, sustainable level of exercise is important for gaining a long term benefit. No point training flat out for 6 months, then burning out and stopping all together. Consistency is king, but part of having consistency is understanding how much training is too much and at what point the level of training begins to threaten the longevity of the activity.

I like to exercise a lot and in my experience I try and cram in more than many and probably more than I should. Sometimes that doesn't work for me and a lesson that has taken me a very long time to learn is that when it is too much it is okay to step back for a moment.