Coach Carter

The general consensus is that exercise is good for you - exercise, along with good nutrition, does improve health and longevity. However, it can be taken to extremes, and indeed, exercise does not cancel out a poor attitude to health. If we take this to the extreme, athletes are actually sailing very close to the wind for a large proportion of the year: the very need to stretch their bodies to get fitter is actually in the short term, affecting health. Each training session will suppress normal immune function. If this overload is too high, they 'overtrain' and the immune system takes a bashing.

We all perhaps know or have known athletes who seem to use their training as an excuse to overeat or make unhealthy food choices. I won't criticise the likes of Phelps or Bolt for their fast food diets (as it seems to work for them!) but ultimately, its not the healthiest fuel to run your engine long term. For some athletes, there is a perception that training allows you to eat more - they think of re-fuelling after training simply as replacing the calories lost. Little thought is given to the quality of the food. Take time to think what you want your body to be made up of though - we literally "are what we eat", as the body can only take the material you ingest for its building blocks. Choose foods that will help you recover from the stress of training, not just equate energy burnt. Working with my colleage Lucy-Ann, a nutritionist, I often get chance to tell an athlete that the basis for good performance is one of good health. You can't expect your body to perform at the peak of its potential if you do not have good health. The best training in the world can't happen if you are not fuelling well, sleeping well, and don't have good health. Lucy-Ann has some great food ideas, so check out her website.

Another example of fitness not being the same as health is when it comes to injury or illness. One of the most frustrating times for an athlete is having to let go of performance aims when a injury flares up. Often, injury / illness comes to us at a time of peak fitness - as its when we have pushed the envelope in order to peak that we are at our most vulnerable. The temptation is to keep training, or even to compete when injured. We grasp at the short term often at the neglect of the long term. This time of year often sees this pattern emerging: athletes keen to get started on the race season often ignoring the little signs that all is not well.

I've had a few discussions with athletes this week about the need to move focus outward, away from the detail of training and take a look at the bigger picture. So attentive to power, HR, distance targets, we can sometimes forget to listen to how we feel: yes, that good old fashioned metric we seem to have lost since having objectivity through numbers! Training plans, when first written, are not perfect - they just form templates, guides to follow. If we see them as gospel (Coach wrote this, and expects me to finish it) we will override the signals from the body telling us to slow down, or to stop. We ignore the fact we are eating more (to try and combat fatigue) or sleeping less (from being overtired). I think in general, the athletes I work with are pretty switched on to these 'metrics' - this comes from me nagging them about training diaries!

One of the reasons I have been contemplating health this week is having Craig prepare for the Leadville 100. We had a team meeting last week, and we covered the main aspects we need to address: not only in helping him reach peak potential in the event; but firstly GETTING him to the startline, and then getting him around the course safely. A good example of this is our intention to acclimatise Craig ready for altitude - we explained the acute reaction the body will have, how he will need to cope with this. At 3000m, even his Dad (his support team!) will have to be aware of the symptoms and actions. Craig exercising at this altitude will have to take the preparation another step - we explained he will lose 10% of his fitness because of the environmental extremes. As well as the threat to Craig from the lower pressure of oxygen at that height, we also need to protect him against the severe physcial challenge of the event terrain and duration. One of Craig's major aims is to improve his power to weight ratio for all the climbing ahead: so the next 20 weeks are about increasing fitness at a time of losing weight whilst retaining lean body mass - complicated dynamics...but he is in good hands with the team we have built.

As much as the training athlete, Coach has also heeded words of wisdom on health this week - I found a great blog post on the need for rest, so I took it on board and have now set an intention of taking one full day off per week. Sundays, I am no longer allowed to turn my PC on - it is now about me, a book and a trip to Caffe Nero for breakfast...its hard looking after yourself ;-)