My Body is a mystery to me...

I am making a serious effort to get to know my body. For the past 30 odd years, I've done my best to ignore it. I mean, I have a degree in politics and journalism - what do I need to understand my body for? Its better for everyone if I just continue to ignore it unless it gives me reason to do otherwise, like Gastro. Yep. That's a good reason to notice my body...

This morning - classic case in point. 5.30am and I'm strapping on my heart rate monitor. My resting heart rate is a little high. Not a good sign. My client and friend, JN, is an experienced athlete. To put you in the picture, he celebrated his 50th birthday by doing a FULL iron man distance triathlon, and backed it up 10 days later by running the New York Marathon. He knows a thing or two about training. He told me once that the legend that is Robert De Castella did a lot of his training load based on what his resting heart rate was when he woke in the morning. High heart rate meant his body was recovering still, or fighting something off. Normal heart rate meant go hard.

True? No idea but I have found that in my world, it can be true.

This morning, my body punished me for 7kms. It hurt. I found it hard to find my pace and my heart rate was through the roof for the whole run. Though I shaved another minute off my 7km time, it was neither pretty nor fun.

But here's the thing....I ALSO woke up this morning feeling like I couldn't breathe very well, with a bit of a sore throat. I THOUGHT about staying home decided against it. My body flipped me the bird while I ran around Lake Monger. It yelled abuse in my ear.

Thus begins the dawning of a new day. I'm going to listen to my body a bit more and see where it gets me...even though I may have to occasionally tell it to mind the language.

Chat soon

GT