Recovery

Recovery is probably the most important thing in your training plan.  I mean it.  And I am not just talking about the IronMan.  I am talking about everything.  If all you do is go go go, eventually your going to burn out.  It is inevitable.  This is true whether your talking about working at your job 12 hours a day, or training for an IronMan.  In fact, in the area of physical training, you can actually totally take yourself out if you don't allow for proper recovery.  For example, you can actually run yourself so hard that when you finally do rest, your legs end up being dead for weeks!  Your body is trained and conditioned to overcome amazing odds and keep running in the most harsh environments and through the most difficult circumstances, all in the interest of keeping you alive.  However, although these bodily functions are amazing, and are very handy on a short time line (say, like running from a LION) they are not designed, nor are they healthy, for long time frames.

Over time, if you keep running yourself ragged, adrenaline levels cause cellular damage and hormones and chemicals build up in the body and cause damage.  Stress is one of the biggest contributors!  I watched this documentary on stress on the discovery channel the other day and wow!  Being stressed, actually releases different hormones in your body than a normal health person.  These hormones actually lead to heart disease, obesity, and a host of other health problems!  It seems strange that the body would poison itself but that is actually what happens!  Apparently it happens in dogs, monkeys, meerkats, and all over the mammalian animal landscape!  The more stressed out you are, the more health problems you have too!  It sounds like a bad joke but it's true.  Your stress level also really depends on the framework from which you define yourself.  Say you go to a job every day and your the low man on the totem-pole and your boss hates you and yells at you everyday.  Well if you define yourself from the framework of your job, then you'll be very stressed out, since that situation sucks and you may be tempted to feel like a loser.  Now let's say you are  also is the short stop in your companies softball league and everybody looks to you for softball leadership and coaching.  Well if you chooses to define yourself from THAT framework, then the job isn't so unbearable, you are the alpha the second you walk onto that softball field (alpha does NOT equal jerk FYI).

Success in your goals depends on your ability to NOT get taken out by circumstances, both the ones that come with the territory for what your trying to accomplish, and the external ones that will surely rear their ugly heads and get in your face the second you start to accomplish something great.  Success greatly depends on your ability to manage all the craziness of life with an even temper and a steady keel.  So you've got to find the thing that gives you back your balance, and put that in your calendar FIRST!  Round two is knowing that your going to have to defend that time because it's going to be assaulted by the world and your circumstances.

Having said all that, I think i'm going to go spend some quality time with my calendar, make sure there is enough room in there for my muscles to recover, my mind to recover, and my soul to recover.  See the awesome photo of a meerkat family below.  They rock.

Photo:  Meerkats are awesome.