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Sunday, July 24, 2011

Do fit people feel fit?

Recently have been thinking about this question because i don't particularly feel very fit at the moment.  So i wonder, should i feel fit?  What would this mean anyway?  Am i expecting that there is some sort of physical sensation that essentially amounts to fitness?  My workouts always feel hard, but thats probably just because i work hard at them.  I've long since abandoned the notion that as i get fitter things are going to feel easier - because i've increased the intensity or challenge of my activities accordingly so that i spend most of my time training feeling like really pushing it.  Maybe i have this notion of 'fitness' as a physical, sensory quality because i can remember times in the past when I intellectually thought that i was 'fit', and there were accompanying sensations that i assumed were the hallmarks of fitness.  Residual soreness, aching joints - signs that i was doing things. I used to train 3 or more times as much as i do now - all that activity made me mentally more aware of my physical body I suppose.  But  now i feel antsy.  I know by my performances that i must be pretty fit - long five hour days of moderate activity where i'm setting the course for the adventure race (that i'm putting on next month) don't really even feel like an effort.  Dragging a tire for 4 and a half miles at just over a 9 minute mile pace to the point where i feel like i'm about to collapse doesn't seem to have a lasting affect - a couple hours later all traces of the effort seem to have vanished, and there is no soreness the next morning.  But as this big race comes closer I find myself second guessing my fitness because of of the way I feel, or more precisely, the lack of the way i feel.  Anyone else ever had a similar experience?

2 comments:

  1. Fitness only comes to me in hindsight. As in "When I think of what I was doing when I was 25, I realize that I was fit!" But did I feel that way at 25? NO. Just mildly arrogant.

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  2. I'm in pretty much the same boat as you for how I "feel" after a workout. It doesn't seem to matter how long, how intense it is, it hurts at some level at the time, but then like you, a couple hours later you would not have a clue I did anything. I don't know what that means from a physiology standpoint, I wish I knew too. I think your muscles just know how to handle it, and how to feel recovered, but then the cardio and strain is too much at the time. I no longer know how to define fitness... I would lean towards keeping up at the time over not feeling it after the race.

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