"Getting sick sucks!" Let me qualify that for those that may not know me personally. As someone who has never been seriously sick and who almost never gets even even a little bit sick I don't really have any first hand experience with how bad something as common as the flu can get, but I hear it can be awful.
Historically if I got a runny nose or a tickle in my throat I would continue to train lightly and in a couple of days I would be back to normal. This sort of mild sickness and rapid recovery has traditionally infuriated my friends and family to no end as they suffer for 5 to 7 days with pockets full of tissues dosed up cold and flu tablets stuck on the couch wrapped up under a blanket. But this last couple of weeks the tables have turned.
I went to bed feeling a little unwell one Sunday night and after a night of rotating fever induced intense cold and sweating my regular alarm went off at 5am so I automatically got up, as I always do. I generally have no trouble motivating myself to get into the gym or hit the road even at 5am, so if I find myself wanting to crawl back into bed I try and take a second to examine what is really going on. My legs, shoulders, biceps and back were all very achy even though the day before had been a rest day. How can this be the case? "Oh, I am sick" I muttered to myself in the dark quiet of a Monday morning.
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| Image stolen from Facebook |
As someone all to familiar with making excuses when it comes to exercise and nutrition I am hyper vigilant of the times I give myself reasons to skip a workout. I often find myself in an internal debate over what is legitimate and what is me just being "weak". Thankfully these debates don't happen very often, but when they do I often lay on the guilt pretty thick even when I know the best thing I can do is rest and recover. I tell myself "I can push through this. I will feel all the better for it" and I am usually right, but sometimes I really need to accept that fact that I am genuinely sick.
I have the same problem at the other end of an illness too, "when should you start training again?". I find myself thinking "I am feeling better, I should get back into it tomorrow morning", but how soon is too soon? I don't think I am capable of waiting until I am completely recovered, I can barely hold off until I am "pretty good with a little cough or runny nose" before I start hitting the road and the weights but this seems to be a very personal decision. I know that if I start training again my body will tell me when it has nothing left to give so I will back off the intensity or just try and coast it home for the rest of the run, but I guess everyone has to find that balance for themselves.
I had been nearly 2 weeks without training when I attended my first CrossFit class yesterday morning AND I NEARLY DIED! I went for a reasonably light run this morning and had NO STAMINA! The Stampede Melbourne is 16 days out and I am going to have to put in some hard work to bring my condition back up to what it was before I got sick if I want to hit the top 25%. I really am very glad that I dont get sick very often because being forced to take so many steps backward is no fun at all.
