Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Sick and tired...


I had to drag myself out of bed and to work yesterday. Initially I blamed it on the fact that it was Monday. The Monday blues always hit harder after a beautiful weekend that involves little more than fitting in workouts between sleeping in late and meeting friends for a cup of coffee. It was no wonder I didn't really want to go to work.

But as the day wore on it was evident that something more was at play. My coworker had been out of the office for 3 days after having come down with the flu. No amount of caffeine or water seemed to make my headache subside and if my phone would just stop ringing I could easily curl up under my desk and fall asleep. This was definitely more than Monday blues.

It's that time of year when the viruses make their attack on already compromised immune systems. But you've got a workout in the evening - the same one that you skipped last week - so what are you going to do? It's often tough to balance work, health, life, and training. There has to be a happy medium between all of the forces at play in order to maintain overall happiness and health, which will result in a better athlete anyway.

After 5 years of balancing training and life I've come to find that you just have to get your health back before the training can continue. For those highly competitive athletes out there, I realize that it's not always easy to leave the running shoes in the closet and pick up the remote instead. But you've taken off just one workout and can hopefully fight off whatever you've got before it gets worse. Imagine if you did go out on the run and compromised your health even more. Then you end up bed-ridden with the flu. There's goes a week of training and another one will be used just to get back to where you used to be. Sometimes taking off one day is just what the doctor (or coach) ordered.

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