Listening To The Little Voices

This is a blog entry that I would hope not to make, but since I have the opportunity to give myself a public scolding and perhaps help others in the process I thought I would post about my struggle this past Saturday with poor performance and the severe cramps that I suffered.

Another reason I feel compelled to make this entry is due to the appearance to a reader of the White to Horn Mountain ride commentary that my severe cramps were related to heat, fluid intake and electrolyte imbalance, which in my opinion is not true.

On Wednesday of last week I had the little voice in my head say, "you need to stretch" on Thursday the same little voice said, "you need to stretch" and again on Friday the same little voice, but the other part of me ignored all of the little subtle thoughts and the result for my performance on Saturday was not only poor, but it ended up being rather painful. I would rate the cramps on Saturday about a 9 on the pain scale with 10 being the highest. I had to wait until Sunday to check the damage status and I do believe there was some tissue damage to my left and right inner thighs down into my calves. Fortunately it is not as severe as a muscle strain and will probably heal within the next few days.

After training for 25 years in one thing or another I have learned to listen to those little voices and what are those little voices? We are so blessed that God made us in such a way that the communication between the brain and body can relate with the nerve system responding and reacting with signals to the brain reporting in a variety of ways, but we must stop sometimes while our brain is fixated on external issues and listen more intently. Rather than pay attention to the signals last week I blew them off as not being important and focused on something else instead. Again it cost me dearly on Saturday.

If I had listened to my body I should have spent at least 45 to 90 minutes a day from Wednesday until Friday stretching and perhaps decreasing my training load a little. I have experience these cramps in the past and from external voices, such as, Ray Miller, NARC president telling me as I was new to cycling that stretching helped him with cramps and then with advice from the writers of the Science of Sport blog giving me direct advice about how fatigue plays a role in cramping and how stretching may relieve the onset of cramps, my own body telling me to stretch and yet I blew off all this knowledge out of stubbornness and it cost me.

I would love to say I have finally learned my lesson and from this point forward I will not repeat the same stupidity, but as smart as our bodies can be in relating these little signals to the brain sometimes the brain doesn't want to pay attention until it is too late. If we will take a little time each day as athletes and listen to what are bodies are telling us, whether it pain signals or otherwise perhaps our performance levels will also be consistent or increase.

If you are interested to learn more in depth about muscle fatigue and cramping the following is from a series on cramping at Science of Sport blog.

(June 11th update: My legs have recovered enough from Saturday cramps to allow me to stretch early this morning before training. What a relief one session made in just general activities like sitting at my computer is even more relaxing. It is amazing how tight all the muscles feel from the hips down. A couple more sessions Thursday and Friday and I believe my next ride will be much better.)