Today's thought while riding on the trainer.

I've been dealing with an annoying headache for the past few days-- it started on Tuesday, after a poor night's sleep and a loooooong day dealing with work stuff followed by a lengthy callback audition, and has persisted in slightly less painful but no less persistent fashion to today. I know exactly what's causing it: I can feel the very muscle in my neck that's tensing and how it sends pain like lightning flashes across the right side of my head. As for what's causing that particular muscle to tense, I'm sure it's some combination of stress and possibly sleep positioning-- might need to investigate pillow options as my current ones don't appear to help much. 

After an interrupted night (awake from 1:30-3:30ish, tra la), my resting HR was considerably higher than usual-- a surefire sign that I'm not particularly rested and should take it easy today. Fortunately, today's scheduled workouts include a 30-minute bike trainer session, spinning at 100+ RPM while keeping my HR in the lowest zone possible, which is a technique drill more than anything else and thus isn't terribly demanding physically (hint: use a very easy gear and very fast music). As I spun along, I thought about the fact that the typical attitude towards difficult tasks, not just among triathletes but in our culture in general, is to 'bear down and do it,' to tighten up, suck it up, HTFU and get 'er done-- bulldoze one's way through obstacles, pain, and difficulty to achieve the day's goal.

While there are unquestionably moments when that sort of approach is useful, I realized that there is another option: to relax and get it done. Since I was trying to avoid tensing up today, I practiced taking a deep breath from time to time, letting whatever tension I could go, and proceeding from there. It seemed to work well, even though I had to remind myself to do it every few minutes. But when I did, my HR went down several beats and my legs would spin just as quickly or sometimes even faster. Interesting. When I got off the bike, I found a useful stretch for my neck courtesy of the iMuscle app (an incredibly cool and useful app, this, found courtesy of my indefatigable Chief Enabler), and have been using that a few times this morning while reminding myself to let go. So far, so good (or at least better).

So I think I'll be working on this idea alongside my HTFU capacities as I train, 'cos tension's really not all it's cracked up to be. Next up: a swim session this afternoon-- I plan to walk to and from the pool as the snow increases in volume outside...I've always liked walking during a snowfall!