I am a big believer in trusting your instincts, and this morning, even though my sore knee was not any worse, my gut said … don’t run.   Yes my knee wasn’t any worse, but equally, it wasn’t any better.  Deep down, I knew that pushing forward with a 40 minute run, was likely to aggravate my knee and that is a not good thing to do.

It is hard, for someone like me, to not workout when I have a workout scheduled.  I know I could have run today and it probably would have been OK, but then again, would I be getting closer to fixing my knee issue.  That is the key decision point for me.  If I think I can do a workout, and am confident that the workout will not make the situation worse, then I will go ahead and workout.  This morning I lacked that confidence.

Here is the key point, missing a workout or two, after the huge amount of training I have done over the past six months, is not going to impact my fitness one little bit.  What will impact my fitness, is a major injury, that puts me out of action for weeks.  That thought is what makes the decision to skip a workout easy to live with.

Taking care of small issues, before they become big issues, is a discipline it has taken me years to learn.  In my early career, I would continue to keep pushing, until my body broke down with a significant injury.  These days, I am better at avoiding that, and have learnt to relax and enjoy the occasional day off.