"Listen to your body"

It's too often a pointless phrase.  If you do "listen do your body", do you understand what your body is saying?  And then as you say Ben, what next?

After several seasons, I know what my body is more or less saying and what it will take to fix it.  Side stiches, heel pain, ankle stiffness, bonking, stiff shoulders, etc. But a lot of people don't.  I've also visited physical therapists enough (and read enough) to have a reasonable layman's grasp of the common problems.

Just the other day I was riding with a fairly newbie rider on a 90+ degree day and he was saying how thirsty he was, he just needed more and more bottles.  I told him "you're probably not really that thirsty, you're probably just hot.  Pour that water bottle over yourself instead of drinking it, and you'll feel much better."  And bingo, that was it. 

A few weeks ago I did a sprint triathlon and saw one of my triathlon friends. He was talking about having some low back pain, and after some discussion my guess was weak back muscles, not a pull or a strain.  This is what he mailed me:

"Hey Bruce you nailed it. Have a pinched nerve between L4 & L5 due to weak back muscles. The exercises that you showed me are what the PT person is making me do, and it's working!!! Thanks for the clues!"

I recently turned 62 and over the past few months have noticed an increase in my need for recovery time between hard workouts.  Symptoms have been general fatigue and increasing muscle cramps and soreness, particularly with my legs.   

A contributing factor is that I've recently ramped up my swimming program with more  kicking and drill work which tends to be more tiring.   

I started to feel that my fatigue was becoming cumulative and I needed to make some change in my training program.

Short term I've cut out one run/week to rest my legs a bit more.  That puts me at three runs. three swims, two rides and one gym session per week.   

I'm also starting to take a serious look at my long-term goals and objectives.  I'd like to find a balance that where I can still enjoy training and competing without running myself into the ground doing so.

Mark

It's good advice, but beginners need to take it with a huge grain of salt.

I've seen way too many new/budding endurance athletes shut down their training right when they are on the verge of significant breakthrough improvements because things are sore, they're too tired, etc. 

Athletes need to learn the difference in feeling between tendon strains, muscle strains, fatigue, and then know what to do next.

For example, tendon strains are serious, and you should NOT train through them - you have to ease up, often for quite while, usually weeks-months. Muscle strains come and go much faster, usually days. Fatigue also is usually a sign you're doing something right in your 'build' phase - if you don't feel really fatigued at some point in the endurance-base building phase of training, you're not pushing the boundaries of your endurance.  Similarly, if you're feeling totally recovered during most of your training, you're probably not improving much at all.