In sickness and in health?

I am pretty rarely ill. Aside from a couple of broken bones (right medial malleolus in a rock climbing accident and an RDI fracture of the left distal radius) and appendicitis as an eight year-old, I'm rarely out and out ill. I average one day off work every other year, give or take. As a result, I hate being ill and feel guilty about it when it does happen, particularly if I have to take time of work or training.

I'm currently ill with man 'flu and I hate it. I've been ill enough to have a sore throat, headaches and general cold-like symptoms but not so ill that I feel justified in taking time off work. So I'm left wondering what to do about training.

The question really asking here is; when should you say "to hell with it all, I am going to take time off  training"?

And the answer we're really going to get is "it depends".

In my case, I've laid off the phys and the cardio for most of this week; although I've possibly taken the cardio a teensy bit far in recent months, so laying off this is no bad thing anyway, even if just to give my legs' connective tissues a rest from being beaten into the pavement for 50+ miles each week. But this is all really a sideshow, what I would like to work out is when to take time off the important thing, the real deal; when to take time off shooting.

It's always going to be a judgement call: the training you have planned, the illness, the weather conditions, the distance to the nearest bathroom (really important in some cases). Yes, all are relevant factors but that said, to my mind they are all subservient to one thing; do you feel like going shooting? I think that I've already set out to address questions motivation and how the quality of training is just as important as the volume of training, so this is fundamental. In other words, if you don't want to go train or shoot and you don't think that you'll warm to the idea as you get into it, then don't waste your time. You'll probably just end up going through the motions and not putting quality time in, which is possibly worse than not putting time in at all.

Today, I'm taking the day off with man 'flu. Despite the offer of a day's shooting at 1,000 yards in autumn sunshine out on the East coast I'm lying in bed typing this having had a wonderful lie-in and not one, but two breakfasts in bed. I don't feel guilty in the slightest.