The last several days, the entire house has been entrenched with a GI bug. Or for those of you who do not know what I mean…think diarrhea, nausea, and occasional vomiting. It’s the beginning of what may be a brutal winter so it’s not surprising to me that we are already sick. My husband, James, will usually get sick first. He has idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and complex regional pain syndrome. Or in simpler terms, my husband is a medical hot mess. Please don’t feel bad for me here, it’s one of the reasons why I do triathlon. It’s hard, it’s painful, and it does not even equal what he goes through every day.
So the last few days have been hard because I have not felt myself. I have felt nauseous, and have had diarrhea. Which, as grossed out as you may be right now, are not good things to be having when you are training for anything. Many triathletes may just push through the illness and keep training. But that is a very dumb idea. Sometimes you have to understand when you need to take a break. And I knew that it was time to give my body two days off. Well…to be honest, it was really one day off because the day before I had to go to work and do work things, so resting was not really an option on that front. Another factor to understand is that mental AND physical rest are needed for proper recuperation. And pardon my blunt honesty about bodily functions, but you are reading a blog written by a nurse. We have conversations about gross bodily functions over dinner.
Anyway, this evening, I decided I needed to get back to my base training. And I found that Zwift (14.99/month), has a feature where I can build in my workouts that are dictated by my 80/20 triathlon plan. So I took a few extra minutes and built in what I needed to do. It was wonderful! There is so much of a mind over matter with me because of my chronic anxiety. I often get all worked up if I feel like I am not doing what is prescribed. So in this case, I programmed it in, added my music from Amazon music, and I was off to the races. The shit-eating-grin returned at about 40 minutes. It was nice to feel that this is something that is sustainable.
Anyway, it was the first workout since starting this that I did not feel terrible. I did not feel incredibly tired or stressed. So I guess I am going in the right direction.
Ironman for the PhD (Poor, hungry, Desperate) 