Pain and/or Gain

I picked a great time to start putting this journey online.  Within a day of my previous post, I paid one of the prices of being 45: I slept funny and had severe lower back pain for days.  I could still swim with this pain, and it even seemed to help, but running and cycling were very difficult.  I am finally back on a full routine, but it seemed like a good time to touch on one of the joyful considerations of getting into endurance sports in your middle age (or later) years: when do I play through pain?

I’m not a physician, nor should anything I say here be given weight over doctor’s orders or medical advice.  With some regularity, I’ve got aches, stiffness, or pain in some part of me that is important to one of the triathlon disciplines or the strength training I’m doing to create an overall better athletic platform.  My right Achilles tendon flares up A LOT.  Back soreness.  Pain around or under my knees.  Sore shoulders.  Carpal tunnel issues.  I stretch and have recovery time built into my training, but one or more of these issues seems to be regularly in place as I descend into or out of the pain cave or set out on the road.  I can tell you, it’s very tempting to let this be an excuse not to do the laps or hop on the bike, despite how much I’ve already come to love cycling and swimming in just a few months.  How do I decide whether to go our or not?

First, I try to objectively determine the true severity of the pain.  Does it actually hurt so much that training will be a problem, or is it a convenient excuse to go to bed early or bag a few miles outside?  Am I the problem, or is the pain the problem?

Second, I feel how sharp or dull the pain is.  Sharp pain scares me more in terms of the risk of damaging or breaking something myself v aggravating an inflammation.  This is one of those areas where a doctor should weigh in, as this may be complete nonsense, but it’s part of my calculus. 

Third, my fitness records include notes on past pain, and I will look at those to see how it rates against past issues and what I did those days.  Usually this is motivating, as I will have gone out and done a workout with higher discomfort and I can use that to make myself put the shoes on. 

Fourth, if it’s still a bit of a coin-toss, I might switch my recovery day and give myself the extra time to recover.  Do not be afraid to do this.  Overly rigid adherence to a training regime can certainly result in an injury that sets you back much further than switching a recovery day or even taking an extra recovery day. 

Albert Camus wrote “Sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement.”  Whether it means taking some extra recovery time or pushing through some tolerable pain, carry on with the goal: get to the finish line and be healthy when you get there.