Thursday Thoughts: Training & Longings

Life is training.

It never gets easier, you just go faster or longer.  It’s like wrestling with a gorilla.  You don’t stop when you get tired, you stop when the gorilla gets tired.

Over-training is dumb and counterproductive.

Training is the application of a calculated load or stress, coupled with correct nutrition, and proper rest and recovery.  Training is a stimulus.  The response is the body’s adaptation to the training load.  This response takes place during resting and recovery.  Training, without correct recovery is much like cultivating the garden and then planting weeds.

Overtraining results when the load applied is greater than the body’s ability to adapt.

Symptoms of overtraining include (but are not limited to):

• Persistent muscle soreness
• Persistent fatigue
• Elevated resting heart rate
• Reduced heart rate variability
• Increased susceptibility to infection
• Increased incidence of injury
• Irritability
• Sudden variability of sleep patterns
• Depression
• Loss of zest for training.

Lately, in my life, I have not been able to do as much riding and training as I would like and would prefer.  There have been some outside circumstances that have kept me off of the bike, and have seriously impacted my time available for training.

I find myself actually lusting for a good long ride, a hard workout.  This time will end.  I know it will.  The things that I am doing must be done, and their time is now.  But this time will end, and I will again ride more, ride to work more, and ride with more purpose.

For now, riding is therapy.  It sooths and relaxes me.  My bicycle tells me it will wait, but only so long.  Only as long as it takes, and not one second l