Learning to relax

It has been an interesting 24 hours seeing the responses people have had to the post I made yesterday.

I have had a lot of responses from people and overwhelmingly what I have heard from them is, 'I know exactly what you mean'. It seems that the feeling of frustration at not being able train, of watching fitness and condition slip away and the low moods that go with it are common to a lot of us. Not surprising really. For most athletes a lot of time and effort has been invested in their sport and it is very hard to watch that slip away. I don't know many athletes that wouldn't find that difficult.

The fact that it may be necessary to let some of that fitness etc slip in order to rest sufficiently for your recovery is something that we all seem to know. Similarly we all know that fitness and condition can be rebuilt. Every athlete has been through that journey numerous times, we all know it is possible and is usually even enjoyable. However, despite us all knowing that, it seems that the mental struggle that I have had is one that is experienced by many people. Training and sport is a big part of our lives and not doing them makes us unhappy, even when not doing them is really the best thing for us. Deep down I think we all know this, which I suspect is why my post from yesterday seemed to strike a cord with people. We may know it, but that doesn't make being happy about stopping training easy, even when we know we have to.

On a personal level I have been feeling much better since I wrote yesterday's blog. When I started the blog it wasn't with any particular end point in mind. Most of my blog posts start out that way (can you tell). When I finished yesterday's post it had reached a point quite different to what I had been expecting. The process of writing it really helped me pin down the source of the bad frame of mind I had been in for the previous couple of days. The cause and solution seem obvious now, relax about your recovery, don't let the training you can't do frustrate you, but before I wrote yesterday's blog I was struggling to figure that out. Once it dawned on me it was like a weight was suddenly lifted off my mind.

Having now identified why I have been feeling down doesn't suddenly fix the problem. I think most athletes have a fairly hardwired guilt gene (not a real thing) when it comes to missing training. That guilt trigger can be hard to turn off. Saying you need to relax about the training you can't do and actually relaxing are two very different things. However, being aware of the issue seems to be making it a bit easier. And to me that seems like a pretty good first step.

On a finishing note, I know I haven't really spoken about the association between self worth and sporting ability in today's blog post. Originally I wasn't planning on talking about it at all, since I don't really feel I am qualified to, and because I don't think it is a personal factor for me at the moment. However, some of the conversations I have had in the last 24 hours has made me think about it a bit more and now I think it is worth writing about. However, it is worth a post of its own and so I think I will try and look into it a bit tomorrow.