Work, injury, illness…

“I’ll take things that get in my way for $100 Alex.” Yes, I’d be a much better athlete if I didn’t have to go to work. Maybe. It does get in the way of a great many things, it’s infuriating on some days of the week, but it continues to fund my hobbies. And it keeps me on a schedule of some kind. But it still gets in the way. That’s all I’m sayin’.

Injury. One of the largest jobs that endurance athletes have is staying injury free. What we ask of our bodies is incredible. To take a body, from whatever state it exists, and to apply pressure, increase distance, intensity, and to fight the mind to go longer, harder, and faster, requires time and for many a break from our normal lives to pursue. If for no other reason this is jarring to our physiologies because we (many of us so I use the collective we) spend 90% of our work day in a sedentary state, see above paragraph on work. Each time we push to grow as endurance athletes we open ourselves up to injury. There are things that we can in fact push through, and other things that are warnings of a impending strain, crack, crash, or other doom. Staying injury free allows us to continue training and remaining happy (assuming of course that training without pain makes you happy).

Illness. It happens. Rules for this follow the above paragraph. Avoiding this is the second largest job of an endurance athlete. Know that you’re burning more than most people and in different amounts. Know that you need to load up on vitamins, and nutrient dense foods to replenish the stores that you’re depleting in your body. All the resources you’re using to fuel, and rebuild broken muscle must be replaced. Couple that with working out longer, stress from regular life and work (again see the first paragraph) and the body leaves itself more open to illness. Defend against this at all costs. Know the warning signs and back down when necessary to give yourself time to head things off at the pass. It’s far far better to be down for a day or two than a week or two.

That’s all I got. Did I mention that I hate it when work gets in the way of my training? I did?... Oh, ok… Then that’s all I got.