Sick
You get sick during the winter. No matter how optimistic you are as the season of minor and major ailments approaches, how many oranges you eat, how many times you wash your hands, how short you keep your fingernails, how well you dodge the phlegmatic, or how hydrated you keep yourself, an errant germ will wend its way through your defenses and bring you to your knees for at least a week.
Illness affects every dimension of your life, and reliably gives you time to cogitate on each aspect as you lie aching in bed, strung between immobilized exhaustion and bitter resistance. For cyclists, losing lung and muscle power during an illness can be alarming, especially at the physical nadir of winter. Missing rides can be demoralizing. Losing valuable training sessions can set you back.
Some illnesses are mere nuisances, like a head cold can be for a cyclist. The rule of thumb is often stated that if the symptoms remain above the neck you can ride. It's when the lungs begin to fill and myalgias make muscles weak and painful that you need to stop what you're doing and lie down. I don't know how much I trust this. I've had head colds (above the neck) that have made me want to medicate and rest exclusively. To me, if you feel like a ride, you are probably OK to ride. Otherwise, rest and recover, and fight another day.
Riding with a head cold can isolate parts of your aerobic system for analysis unlike anything else, as your clogged nose makes mouth-breathing necessary and you realize how that passive 20% extra you get from a clear nose makes riding at intensity possible. It can also make you more mulish, giving you increased stamina and stubbornness, perfect for long, cold rides in the winter.
When I'm sick, I'll often see things from a different perspective. It might be the virus disrupting my brain, or it might be the time of recovery giving me extra mental cycles to consider the different dimensions of life. In any event, I often leave a severe cold with a slightly different agenda than I entered with it. I also gain a renewed appreciation for the support systems I rely upon but take for granted when I'm well.
For me, the sign that an illness is over is the day I find myself with boundless energy and drive. These super-charged days always strike me as remarkable, and I wish I could time them to correlate with days I actually need them. Riding in a state like that must be amazing.
Illness is like a long, uncomfortable car trip or airplane flight -- it seems interminable when you're in the middle of it, endless and agonizing at times. Yet, when it's over and you have emerged, the memory of it vanishes nearly perfectly, erased from your mind as you reorient forward into the future and become engrossed by the activities around you. You emerge in a different place than you started, and have nowhere to go but forward.
Illness affects every dimension of your life, and reliably gives you time to cogitate on each aspect as you lie aching in bed, strung between immobilized exhaustion and bitter resistance. For cyclists, losing lung and muscle power during an illness can be alarming, especially at the physical nadir of winter. Missing rides can be demoralizing. Losing valuable training sessions can set you back.
Some illnesses are mere nuisances, like a head cold can be for a cyclist. The rule of thumb is often stated that if the symptoms remain above the neck you can ride. It's when the lungs begin to fill and myalgias make muscles weak and painful that you need to stop what you're doing and lie down. I don't know how much I trust this. I've had head colds (above the neck) that have made me want to medicate and rest exclusively. To me, if you feel like a ride, you are probably OK to ride. Otherwise, rest and recover, and fight another day.
Riding with a head cold can isolate parts of your aerobic system for analysis unlike anything else, as your clogged nose makes mouth-breathing necessary and you realize how that passive 20% extra you get from a clear nose makes riding at intensity possible. It can also make you more mulish, giving you increased stamina and stubbornness, perfect for long, cold rides in the winter.
When I'm sick, I'll often see things from a different perspective. It might be the virus disrupting my brain, or it might be the time of recovery giving me extra mental cycles to consider the different dimensions of life. In any event, I often leave a severe cold with a slightly different agenda than I entered with it. I also gain a renewed appreciation for the support systems I rely upon but take for granted when I'm well.
For me, the sign that an illness is over is the day I find myself with boundless energy and drive. These super-charged days always strike me as remarkable, and I wish I could time them to correlate with days I actually need them. Riding in a state like that must be amazing.
Illness is like a long, uncomfortable car trip or airplane flight -- it seems interminable when you're in the middle of it, endless and agonizing at times. Yet, when it's over and you have emerged, the memory of it vanishes nearly perfectly, erased from your mind as you reorient forward into the future and become engrossed by the activities around you. You emerge in a different place than you started, and have nowhere to go but forward.
posted by Recycled Cyclist | 11:11 AM
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