The Panic of Taking a Day Off

I thought I'd try writing whilst somewhat in a state of panic. It's 6:18 Tuesday evening - prime time to be in pure training mode, but I ain't out there gettin' it done. I woke up gung-ho enough, but my noon I was on energy watch, and after just completing my warmup in my regular Tuesday lunchtime swim session I was not at all upset when the lifeguard booted me out of the pool for hearing thunder in the vicinity. "Fine, I wasn't having any fun anyway," I told her and hopped out of the pool just in time before it became a seething death tub of electrons.

All afternoon I've been going back and forth in my head - am I seeing signs of overtraining or am I just being a wussy? Fatigue, a little irritable maybe, and what's this piss-ant little cough I do every now and then? Hell, I should be tired after a weekend 110 mile ride and 5 mile run on Saturday, and a 20 mile run in 90-something percent humidity on Sunday!

The evening's workout -a 1.25 hr bike ride with some intervals, followed by a 6 mi M-pace run, and then 20 minutes of functional exercises -was already in jeopardy with the weather threatening rain, but my plan B was to get on the Computrainer and then get the run in afterwards.

I haven't missed a workout yet in this season's IM training. I've had a strong 2 months of solid training, and when weather or schedule or something else tried to get in the way I found a creative way to alter the workout or I just sucked it up and got out there anyway.

But after setting up the Computrainer and spinning for a few minutes in the garage, I decided tonight would be better spent resting and hopefully I can come back tomorrow burning with energy to tear it up out there on the track for my Wednesday session. I counted the hours I'd miss towards my goal of reaching 80 hours of training this month, and I'm gonna fall short of that anyway. I checked my weight at 160 lb, which is right where I want to be, so I'm not gonna go to bed "feeling fat" or anything. Chilling the night away just seems like the right thing to do, and I hope I can get to bed feeling the same way without going into the typical downward spiral of self-induced panic inspired by the absurdity that my entire fitness is falling apart in the course of one single evening.