I've been lurking in this forum for a long time, but your message inspired me to post my first response. I've learned a lot about stress and exercise (the hard way) over the past several years, and one of the most important lessons I've learned is this:

All stress is the same. Period.

Sure, we can experience stress from different sources, such as the physical stress of training and racing, the mental stress of a difficult job, and the emotional stress of strained or failing relationships. But, while it's true that our stress comes from many different places, at the physiological and hormonal level the effect of stress on our bodies--any stress--is the same.

In this way, stress is cumulative, and we can only handle so much of it before we suffer ill effects. When the other areas of our lives are very stressful, we may not have as much "reserve capacity" left for training and racing. (Interestingly, the converse is true as well: too much training and we get overtrained to the point where we can't handle the other stresses of our lives.)

I've had very good luck by forcing myself to back off on the training at stressful times, and you may find this to be helpful to you as well. In my experience, I suffered no appreciable loss in fitness, and was able to focus more of my energies on addressing and resolving the other stresses in my life. Then, once those stresses were minimized, I was a much happier (and much faster) individual. Dr. Phil Maffetone writes a lot about this in his books and on his website (www.philsbar.com). You might find his articles helpful--I know I did.

Best of luck!

Hey Gary, First off, and most importantly- good luck with your house and I hope you don't have to get called up for reserves. Whether you do or not, a heartfelt thank-you for putting yourself on the line like that. Regardless of political orientation or opinion I appreciate the effort you and all our reserve and active duty people put in. It's a tough job.

Stress is tough, but it is a tamable animal. It can be managed. Sometimes I get so strung out with deadlines, projects, commitments, social things, training it just becomes too mch. I need the odd night at home with the cats, the stereo and a book. I think your issues are greater than what a cat, a DeBussy CD and a book will remedy. Maybe the other things pulling on your life right now mandate dialing back a bit on your traiing, or refocusing the purpose of the training on stress relief. Perhaps you may consider it as a way to relieve stress, rather than a way to add additional expectations of a specific performance. Just ride your bike, go for a run- do what you want. Don't sweat the stopwatch. You have other things going on. I know you already know that. Good luck- keep us posted.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Tom and Dominic, thanks for the replys, I know that I have to keep this fun and remember that it is something I do becuase I enjoy it. Whether or not I reach my goals this year will not deter me from continuing to ride and train. I know that if I am not careful the sport I love will become a burden, such as in 2001 when after the season ended I abandoned MTB racing (raced for several years) bacause it just wasnt fun for me anymore. I got into Du and TT racing because it was new and fun. I want to keep it that way. I think I will probably use this season to train for 2004, learning about time trialing and building strength and speed. I'll still race 2-3 times per month because I love it. I just need to tone down my expectations right now and race for fun without stressing. Oh yeah, I have been riding my trainer 3-4x per week (and just one road TT ride) for the past year, in SoCal! I'm a nut ... but a nut with limited training time. It works for me, the trainer. Kinetics. Thinking about putting a PowerTap wheel on the back to measure wattage.

Gary,

I definitely feel your pain, personally. Right now we're selling our home, looking for a new home, planning a wedding, raising a 10 yr old, working 60+ hours a week and training for a 1/2 ironman.

It's nice to be reminded that this is for relaxation. That was great advice Tom gave and I think I'll break off a chunk for myself if you don't mind.

John

Yes it is tough, I got two offers last weekend and were going in to review them tonight. I didnt plan on moving until 2004 but an opportunity came up to get a good deal on another house. Then the war thing came up. Now I just am not sure of this season and it has not really even begun. I have about 15-18 time trials this year and I'll likely race them all, using them mostly as training for 2004 or late 2003 when I plan to get competitive again. At least I'm building a new bike ... thats always fun!