Lindsey Heim

The sixth sense...

I have come to realize that one of the many benefits of being an athlete is what you learn from your body, and the astute sense that you develop in listening to your body. We become very refined in our ability learn from our own physiology. We can tell when we are 'on,' or when our heart rate is even slightly out of normal in everyday happenings or workouts, when riding at 190 watts is feeling more like 200 that day, when our running gait is falling perfectly into place, or when we recover from a workout not as well or better than we normally do. Pushing our bodies to their physiologic limits for hours on end seems to heighten an awareness of these systems that only comes with this practice.

This heightened sense also brings with great responsibility. Like the past few days. I knew my body was fighting something- I know, it sounds a bit crazy, but that is the best way I can describe it. Not recovering how I normally do, tired all the time, no power in my legs, and a general feeling of being 'off', were just some of what was going on. I wasn't sick, or even feeling sick, but knew that I was on that tight rope. In the past, I try to continue on as planned and dismiss these physiologic messages with excuses such as, stress, hours of sleep, cycle changes, training volume or intensity, nutrition, etc., but based upon my N=3 of pushing through it and subsequently getting sick 3 times this winter ( I know, its downright ridiculous) , I am trying something new. Listening to my body.

So, I did it, I backed off on my workouts for the past couple days- a lot. I don't like it, and that part of me that loves my training log to read like a perfect road map really doesn't like it, because no matter what, missed traning is a missed opportunity to improve- it is a failure to accomplish a goal that I set out to pursue, and that isn't a good feeling. However, what I am trying to do is not have a perfect tranining log, but do the right thing to consistently pursue self improvement. So far, it is working- still feeling good.