My training came to a screeching halt on Wed Oct 14. I woke up with a slight
fever and toward the end of the day, the upper left jaw swelled and my head felt
hot and muddy. My body was flashing a familiar red light(it would be called
上火 in traditional Chinese medicine). The symptoms reminded of a virus attack
and I even thought of Covid. It would help me understand by looking back and
observing the events that had led to this onslaught as I saw it as something
built over time.
Since Sep 21, I have been working on strength and cardio on alternate days,
half-an-hour weight-lifting on Mon, Wed, and Fri, and one-hour medium runs on
Tue and Thu. I rested on Sat and spent about two hours on the trails on Sun.
During the same period, I discovered a promising way to fight a sedentary
lifestyle. Following a StrongFirst article, I started to interrrupt sitting with hourly
4x3 single-arm swings(More on that later). As a result, each day would see me
doing an extra of 50 to 100 swings, depending on whether I ran.
With this regimen, my muscles were almost always sore and sleep quality often
suffered. I had never run more than eight miles regularly on weekdays before and
it was tough to single-arm swing the 40kg the next day after Mission Peak. Over
time, it got to me.
The last straw was the three-hour hill climb on Sun Oct 11. Afterwards, I should
have taken a one-day break. There were signs that I needed it as I totally
forgot about a meeting with Tim's teacher the next day. Instead, I went ahead
with lifting and broke the coffee fast, which led to a poor sleep Mon night.
Tue morning's eight-mile run was tough and the fever set in at night.
After one quarter of a watermelon and one night of rest, the fever and headache
were gone and the gum almost recovered. The rebound was much faster than in the
past. Wed's breakdown only took two runs out for the rest of the week and had no
impact on the strength side.
It is good to test limits without incurring permanent damage. I know my ego
had played a big role and I need to always keep the right vision in sight.
