Rest when you are sick, it’s that simple

As I wrote in my last blog post, this has been one tough winter across Canada. Bad weather, cold temperatures, and now lots of people are sick. Within my own circle of clients, there are five of us who have been dealing with sickness that just won’t go away. My own chest cold started at the end of February, so that makes it more than six weeks that I have been dealing with it.

My initial mistake was a simple one that we all make. When I got sick, I was at a training camp in California, and I kept riding. Riding throughout the camp drove the cold deep into my chest. I knew better than to keep riding, but when you are at a camp it is tough. Now I am paying the price. My second mistake was to get back to training too soon after I was “better.” I should have listened to my coach and rested more.

Training, or even worse, trying to train, while we are sick and coming back too soon are two mistakes that we all make. Rest is actually the most challenging part of training, which few of us do well enough. Everyone worries about missing training days and losing fitness. We half-train in the hopes of maintaining our form. In all likelihood though, a bit of rest will do nothing but benefit you and allow your body to adapt to the training stress you have put it under. I would have been better off taking the time off the bike when it was necessary. Then I most likely would have gotten over the cold completely, been training properly again quickly enough, and still been on target for my spring goals. I didn’t rest, have been sick for six weeks and am starting to look at re-assessing my goals for the season. Lucky for me, there is still lots of the 2014 season remaining.