When to say go?

During your season, no matter what sport you are training for, you’ll find yourself at the threshold of a decision. “Should I stay or should I go?”. It could be a number of things causing this pause, you’re tired or you are unmotivated at the moment. I experienced this last night except I was already rolling. Sure there are times when you know you’ve had several days of workouts behind you and you just need a rest but this was different.

I was at work thinking about doing a long ride and looked forward to getting out there and exploring for 2 hours on my bike. When I got to the point where I was suited up and ready to roll I didn’t feel the usual motivation to grind it out for 2 hours but I pushed on. During the first 2 miles I questioned myself…”should I just head home and take a nap?”, I was feeling sluggish and sore. I had done some upper body work the night before and was feeling it.

Having many years of training behind me from my running days I knew that if I pressed on things would change. It’s something in me, I’m not sure if it is in other athletes or if they experience the same thing but there is a point that I pass somewhere along the workout that everything comes together and I’m back on track. Knowing this made me push on and deal with the sluggish feeling I was experiencing at the time.

I wound up riding for a little over 2hrs and put in 26 miles with an average of 12.5mph according to my strava report. I was kind of shocked that I kept that pace, I figured it would be somewhere in the 10-11mpg avg. per mile. This reinforced the fact to believe in yourself and to know when to take a break. It comes with experience I guess but if you’re going through the same thing…press on, it will get better.