The Art of Over-Training

Just like so many things we do in life, over-training is a natural by-product of desire to achieve.  It is, at first, easy to perceive this as lack of foresight or understanding of your own personal limitations.  Yet I ask, do any of us fully understanding our limitations?  Is this even possible?

My point is this:  I feel that it is necessary to read one's body as an athlete. Certainly as a Master's athlete, this might be even more important.  However, to grow, to achieve, you do have to push yourself if you choose to compete (of course I recognize that there are many out there who feel that one should never compete for assorted reasons that negatively impact one's health). 

This past week, I have been doing assorted time trials.  I have been going for sessions of 1.5 hour and maintaining very high pace and resultant heart rate.  This is not something I generally do, but circumstances got me into training rides in which this just kind of occurred.  I also did one session of very high intensity cadence and when I finished that training, I felt like I had Sherpaesque calves capable of climbing Everest. 

This desire to go fast and push myself is nothing new.  I have been mountain biking to work for years and years in a time trial fashion and getting on to a road bike, is in fact not all that different from what I have already been doing.  However, the major change is that I am now training several days more than I have in the past, and overall, the intensity is greater.  I have to take better care of my body (back to massages and my chiropractor) and feed it smartly. 

So what did I learn from today's ride in which my legs, from the start, felt the affects of over-training?  I am not actually sure.  Perhaps I need to make sure that I don't have two difficult weeks in a row, but I think that I need to have a difficult week every now and then.  I also feel that I have a few things in my diet that work for me and that I neglected and need to address next week.  It was a good lesson today, but though I felt like lead was in my legs, I still made it through the ride hiding the pain I was in from those I rode with successfully and even maintained a strong pace on the five minute intervals we were asked to do.  Again, desire is in fact the key ingredient and if you over-train, then make-up for it the next week and do a bit less and make the needed changes.  No excuses, for there are those who have perfected this into an Art form, it is bad art and should be avoided.  Live with the over-training and even the under-training and make the needed changes.  Nobody knows better than you in the end-run what you need to do to change.  So maybe this is not all about The Art of Over-Training, it's really about The Art of Living.