Body Knows Best

I was planning on racing the Pre-Season Physical today. I wanted to get a few shorter, easier races in before the bigger, longer races start in January and thought I may as well start with that one. The problem was that I'd had a very disorganized week and ended up doing very little training early in the week due to weather and whatnot and tried to cram in a bunch on Friday and Saturday. By Saturday afternoon by body was very tired and I was feeling my legs quite a bit when trying to sled with my son. I figured I'd do the race anyway even though I was tired and hadn't prepared my skis just so I could get on a starting line and get used to the whole race thing again. So I got all my clothes ready for morning and went to bed. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke from a dream about the race. I was in the middle of the race skiing nice and easy and feeling good. I figured it was time to pick up the pace and took off. I quickly started getting more and more tired. Soon I was dragging myself along on my belly through the snow until I finally ran completely out of steam and just lay there in the snow, exhausted, unable to crawl any further. When I woke up, I figured by body was trying to tell me something and that it was best to listen. I reached over and turned off the alarm. As hard as it is to back off sometimes, I've learned that it just doesn't pay to ignore your body. It knows best. I'm a little disappointed that I missed it, but feel it was the right decision. I still have a few opportunities to get some races in this month and hopefully I'll be able to plan ahead and be better prepared.