Several times this past week I have felt less than 100% when it came time for my training. The thought of swimming (or running) with an upset stomach wasn’t the most pleasant. Since swimming is my least favorite event to train for, it made sense for me to skip the workout(s). Even when I had already driven 30 minutes to get to the pool, and there were other people around waiting for our swim session. After all, missing one workout won’t ruin my season.
I came to the realization that there have been many times in my races that I haven’t felt all that good. I remember distinctly one race two years ago when I abandoned all nutrition because of an upset stomach, and another when I had to pull over to the side of the road to expel the gel I had just consumed. If I can’t deal with an upset stomach during training, what will I do on a long race when things get bad, and I’m tired to boot? The mind can play some horrible games with you on those days, and I didn’t want to give it any more ammunition.
So despite being afraid that the natural rocking motion of my swimming, or the waves from the other swimmers would make me sick, I jumped in. It didn’t help any when some of the drills caused me to swallow serious amounts of water. I decided to swim until I got sick. Only I didn’t.
Same thing with my run. The thought of pounding the pavement for an hour while choking back the contents of my stomach wasn’t exciting. But I need to learn how to deal with that, so I went anyway. Both times I was able to fight through the nausea and put in a solid workout.
Now when I start feeling nauseas during a race I have these sessions to fall back on and argue back when my head says to quit. I’ve also adopted this mantra: Don’t worry about what might happen. Focus on what is happening right now, and what you are going to do about it.
Another solid week of training completed, and one week closer to my first race! It could be a good one!!
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