It has been a pain-filled day for me today, but not all pain is the same.  Some types of pain are ‘bad’ for an athlete and some are ‘good’.

‘Good Pain’, is the pain that comes from pushing really hard during a workout.  It is often a deep ache or a burning feeling in your muscles.  You know from experience that this type pain is not an injury; it is just your muscles getting extremely fatigued.  It is micro-tears occurring in the muscle fibers that, if you rest and recover properly, will help you build even stronger muscles.  It is the kind of pain, where you need your mental strength to take over, so you can push through that pain until to the end of your workout.

I had ‘good pain’ today.  I had a demanding workout on the bike, that included multiple intervals at high power and high cadence.  My legs were tired after just one interval and my quads were burning.  I didn’t think I would be able to finish the workout. I dug deep however, and just focused on not allowing my tired muscles let me quit.  I was able to mentally overcome the ‘pain’, and I know that I had an effective workout, because I was able to do that.

Unfortunately, I also had bad pain today.  This is pain from an injury.  It is the kind of pain, where you need the mental fortitude of a different kind.  You need your brain to stop you from working out.  If the level of pain seems manageable, it is so easy to push through this kind of pain.  This however, usually results in further aggravating the injury, which increases the level of pain the next day.  The key for this situation is to be mentally strong and use that strength to not do a workout, that will make an injury worse.

My ‘bad pain’ this morning was some insertional Achilles tendonitis.  This is a pain, right at the back of my heel, where the Achilles tendon inserts into the heel bone.  The whole area was very tender to the touch when I got up this morning.  This is something I have dealt with many times before, and I have learned that dealing with it early, before it becomes too inflamed, makes a huge difference.  So, even though I had woken early to do a run, I chose not to do that run today.  Luckily, biking doesn’t seem to bother this injury at all, and I had no heel pain while riding tonight.

Overall, a very interesting day.  One where I needed to be mentally strong, make good decisions and move forward in a smart way.