Something Learned: Being Sick

The last time I took a multi day break from exercising was one month ago.  I added 2 extra days off from my usual Monday off.

Exactly 2 months ago, I caught a minor bug and was semi sidelined for 5 days.

Today is the third day in a row that I've felt like a Brillo pad has been taken to my throat.

Granted, while the timing of this illness coinciding with my pre-planned break from training is better than the alternatives, being sick sucks.

To me, being sick means that I lowered my immune system through training far enough to prevent my body from recovering sufficiently.  Granted, it is cold/flu season and I do take the subway to work every morning, which is packed to the brim of people who don't know how to cover their mouths when they sneeze, but considering how drained I felt after my 13.5 mile run last Sunday, I'm convinced I went too long without a focus on recovery.

Tangentially, I frequent a few sports related forums form time to time and when a new person asks how they should go about starting to pursue their sport of choice, the most common responses I see are, "Run!" or "Do intervals" or "Join a group ride!" or some other training technique or concept.  While I agree that many of the suggestions are valid and will produce results, my advice to beginners hasn't wavered:

"Do whatever you can to maintain consistency"

The interesting thing about this advice is that it means different things to different people.  To beginners, it means, "Don't over do it.  You'll increase your chances of getting hurt and that will sideline you for days or weeks or more."  For Pros, it could mean, "Make sure you get massage 3 times a week so that you can continue to train 20+ hours a week." And for A type amateurs like me, it probably means, "Make sure you work on your recovery and figure out how many hard weeks you can go in a row before your immune system crashes."

And yes, I'm working on listening to my body and as far as I can figure, the number of 6 day workout weeks I can go without needing multiple rest days is between 3 and 3.5 weeks depending on the weekly volume.  What I need to figure out/work on is how I'm going to build on that to add in swimming/biking and what I need to do/eat to boost my immune system.

There's just too much to learn that the only thing I can do right now is evaluate each day, one day at a time.