If you are offended by smileys and a fan of the “smiley” intervention on YouTube then don’t read on.

My blog is covered in smileys. I use only three ( and ) to indicate my prevailing daily mood. By monitoring mood, excercise scientists say, we can get an early indication of overtraining. Too many s and the signs are you should be resting more. Clearly my three-week virus involved an almost continuous line of s.

That mood modulates with exertion sounds terribly obvious, but we are not very good at responding to it. Since I started doing this, strangely enough, I’ve found it much easier to get over bad moods, and not let it affect work or other areas of life. With the appropriate rest, a lot of bad mood can be overcome. However, if you overstress yourself when you’re already in a bad mood, whether through doing too much or (in this case) overtraining, then things may go quickly from bad to worse.

I was very focused on staying within heart rate zone when running today. So when my heart rate computer says “no”, I slow right down. One area where I’ve been much more negligent is in making sure I get eight hours sleep. That also means looking at the watch, and doing what it says. Most nights the past few weeks I’ve been too close to only getting six hours. I’m going to try now to respond to the clock the same way I do to the heart rate monitor.

I also reckoned today that there are less than two and a half months to the Flora London Marathon. I’ve had to resume my long run at a lower level than pre-virus and build up again, leaving me short of training miles. This will make me much more vulnerable to the dreaded “wall”. That’s enough to put me in a bad mood. But on the positive side, I hoped that if everything else in training goes perfectly, I could still be in fantastic shape. And the long run, while necessary, does not alter the huge volume of mileage I will have put in over the past few months, and in the final build up.

Resting heart rate 49 bpm

Mood

Weight 72 kg

Total exercise energy burned 979 kcal (1:07 hours run, 10 mins bike)

Related Posts

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2. training radio silence broken
3. should I run? computer sez no, again
4. listen to your heart
5. malingering over