Most people I know have the opposite problem that I do with exercise: They profess a desire to work out regularly, and can't seem to make themselves do it.
My problem, which is a pretty common one among runners (and I suspect anyone who has gotten good at disciplined practice of a particular athletic activity), is that I have a training plan, and it's really hard to make myself not stick to it. Yes, that is a problem -- occasionally, as it is right now that I'm battling a head cold. Whereas most people would wake up with a sniffle and decide that's a free pass to stay in bed, I often make myself work out anyway. This is sometimes okay if not fun, and sometimes disastrous -- yesterday I completed a six-mile run (fretting all the while that I was supposed to be running eight) and spent most of the rest of the day in bed with chills and an intense fatigue that I can only attribute to overtaxing my body when it needs to repair itself.
In my OAC class, we've been discussing the importance of context -- that dropping the context of a concept or idea can destroy its meaning and lead to faulty thinking. That's exactly the mistake I've made. The training plan I am using was created using a certain context -- for a runner with a certain amount of prior experience (check), with a certain level of baseline fitness (check), and who is in good health -- oh, wait, NOT check! Now that the context has changed, to follow exactly a training program that was created for a healthy runner is not a good idea -- it's a terrible idea. I learned that one the hard way yesterday.
So this morning I skipped my normal Monday workout in favor of an extra hour of sleep. It was hard to do. The disciplined runner in me was screaming, "Don't skip another workout!" (I skipped one last week, when I first started to feel ill) and "It's just three miles, that's nothing!"
Nonetheless, given the current context -- how bad I felt yesterday after running when I shouldn't have, how I need not to sap my energy given that my choir is singing a concert tonight (great timing, no?) -- it was the right choice. I need to listen to my body, not just the drill sergeant in my mind.
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I'm in virtually the same position. I've had a nasty cough to last couple days and I've been missing my workouts. (In my case, lifting weights.) It's hard to shake the feeling that you are losing or foregoing progress. Really, the feeling come from the desire that reality should be different then it is. The proper approach, of course, is to recognize the fact that your body is not in the right condition for improvement.
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