118 days until IRONMAN 70.3 Chattanooga
There are days when everything goes right and every expectation seems to be fulfilled. Today was not one of those days.
Currently at work, I am managing a piece of a big project. We are moving our computing resources to “The Cloud.” I can not underestimate to you the amount of stress I have experienced in the last month and I have very few words to describe it. Suffice it to say that I now understand how stress affects my workouts.
I am an age grouper: an amateur triathlete. You probably are too, so you likely know what I mean when I mention stress and I’m not talking about an intense bike interval or hill repeats. My project at work is behind schedule. Tensions in the workplace are beginning to reveal themselves. The family can not be ignored. The dog pooped in the living room again. And I’m not the only one in my life feeling the stress: Lori is getting it from all directions too. In a family, stress is neither additive nor multiplicative. When two family members are stressed, their problems feed off each other to exponential proportions. ( I have no citation for that, but I had to work in some math so I could understand this when I come back and read it in six months or a year)
My plan today was to come home and run on the treadmill, but that plan was diverted to take care of family business. I’m OK with that, but I wonder how I will be able to handle all this psychological stress without the benefit of a physical relief valve. I think what I’ve overlooked in my training is adaptation to emotional and psychological stress factors. I’ve been so focused on lactate and zones and FTP and TSS.
In hindsight, the family is good. Work will not kill me. There will always be time to workout later. The problem is that hindsight always comes after the damage is done. We just need to recover from the damage.
Until tomorrow …
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