When I was talking about pain a few entries back, I tried to be clear that listening to your body–your pain–was important. But there are times when I’ve found it beneficial to not listen to my body.

The truth is simple: I’m lazy. It would be really easy for me to sleep in every day and just get out of bed whenever; it would be easy to talk myself out of a workout because it’s too hot or too cold or too wet or it looks like it’s going to rain or I’m too stressed out or too tired–and there are days when that happens.

But for the most part, I don’t listen to that. I listen to the voice in my head saying, “Get up, dammit, get on the bike and ride.”

Many folks tell me I’m disciplined in terms of my workouts; I don’t really believe that’s the case. It’s not discipline–it’s just plain forcing myself. If I listened to my body every time, I wouldn’t get much done in terms of working out–but I would get a lot more sleep.

I don’t really know if not listening to your body like this is wise–I certainly don’t recommend it–but I do know this: if I didn’t spend a lot of days not listening to my body, I’d spend a lot of days not working out. And that I can’t have.