Stress is stress

Injuries happen.

Endurance sports tends to attract technically minded people. People who think in terms of facts and data. Measurable stuff.

We, like steel, have a fatigue limit, some level of stress below which we can basically function infinitely.

As athletes, we think of the things we can measure -- distance, speed, frequency. The REAL number crunchers add in things like pulse rate, power, and the like. Ethereal things would be nutrition and sleep quality...

These things are stressors -- stress on the body contributing to that bar approaching our individual fatigue limit.

But there are other things that also contribute. Emotional tolls that also put stress on us. Family difficulties, financial problems, work stress... the variations in this realm are almost limitless. And they are every bit a part of that bar as the training stresses.

The most aggravating part of it is that the things we do to keep our sanity among these other stresses is the very thing that tends to break down when they're at their worst. When we need it the most, that's the very time we should be backing it off in order to be able to keep doing it.

No, I haven't re-injured myself. Everything seems to be going fine in that regard. I just wanted to post this up as a reminder to us all (including myself, as one of those "technical" people that tends to ignore the things I can't measure well) to take into account those stresses when we're looking at our training log and planned workouts. Be honest with ourselves.

You never know, today might be a good day to back it off a little bit.