NicoleWinter finally slammed us here in Colorado over the last few weeks. With this changing weather and possibly more time spent indoors, some sort of virus is making its rounds. With a few of my athletes dealing with this issue, I thought I might share my advice to all. So what do you do when you think that bug might have a hold of you?
You may have heard this before, and you may or may not believe it, but it is indeed OK to skip a workout if you are feeling run down and fighting something. Your body is telling you it needs rest. If it is fighting something you don’t want to stress it even more, or that bug may get a tighter grip. Then you might be forced to take more days off from training. One day of rest today is better than 3 or 4 later.
What do you do if the extra rest didn’t work and you just plain get sick? Step one is to take care of the illness. Eat as healthy as possible, stay hydrated and get as much rest as you can. Your health should always take priority over training.
So now you are better but you had to take more than a day off? If you just missed two or three, you should be able to jump back into your training plan. Ignore the missed days and pick up where the plan continues.
If you miss a week of training, ease back into training with a few easy workouts, and perhaps shorten some high intensity sessions to make sure you are back before going too hard.
If you miss more than a week, you will definitely need to modify your plan. If you have a coach, they should be able to handle this for you. If you are self-coached, take the first two or three days easy – recovery workouts and easy endurance. Then see about doing the workout intensity that you were doing the week before you took off. Yes, it is a slight step backwards but you need to build your fitness from where you are now, not where you would have been had you continued training.
The bottom line, listen to your body and don’t be afraid to turn a day into an easy day or rest day if you might be getting that “thing” that’s going around.
Nicole
