I’m Done Arguing With the Signals
How to train without fighting stress
Most running problems start way before they become obvious.
Things like lasting fatigue and injuries are usually preceded by clear stress indicators that often get brushed aside. Elevated resting heart rate. HRV trending down. Poor sleep stacking up. Lingering aches or soreness that isn’t going away. Feeling sick all the time.
These body signals aren’t just random noise or a normal part of training. They’re early warnings.
Your workouts are getting done, but the cost is adding up.
When training keeps moving forward without adjusting for the rising cost, stress ends up as background noise instead of something to respond to.
I’m done dismissing those signals.
As goals get longer and more demanding, training only works when stress is respected early. Those indicators show how much load your system can handle. Ignoring them lets damage stack quietly until training gets interrupted.
This is the approach I’m carrying forward. Stress stays in the conversation. Adjustments happen early. Training keeps moving instead of stalling later.
“Most injuries are not accidents. They’re feedback ignored too long.” — Stuart McGill
If you want a training approach that listens earlier and stays consistent longer, book a FREE Discovery Call now.
The Signals That Show Up Early
Stress indicators appear long before fatigue or injury becomes obvious, and they can help to guide decisions when listened to.
Most runners now have access to these signals in real time. Watches track resting heart rate. Daily reports surface HRV trends. Sleep quality, recovery time, and workout intensity all get logged automatically.
On their own, these are just daily snapshots of info. Their real value shows up over time in the patterns and trends they tell.
When several indicators begin shifting in a negative direction and don’t rebound, they start to describe how training is being tolerated.
Those shifts in readings usually show up before the fatigue or stress becomes obvious in day-to-day training.
These signals give you an early read on whether the current load is being absorbed cleanly or starting to accumulate. They let you see stress while it’s still manageable, instead of waiting until it forces a correction through missed training, illness, or worse, injury.
Used this way, stress indicators become part of the training process itself — quiet feedback that helps keep the work moving forward instead of getting interrupted later.
Where Training Goes Wrong
Problems start when training keeps moving forward without adjusting for rising stress.
The mistake is never a single workout or a single decision. The breakdown happens when training decisions stop being re-evaluated.
That’s when momentum starts replacing judgment. Hard sessions stay on the calendar despite clear signs of poor sleep or elevated fatigue. Intensity gets added to “test fitness” instead of removed to protect recovery. Long runs go ahead even when soreness hasn’t cleared because skipping them feels like falling behind.
None of these are issues on their own, but they should register as stress indicators in your data.
The problem shows up when these choices start to repeat without being questioned. Stress accumulates quietly when recovery gets treated as optional, and the training plan gets treated as absolute.
The work keeps happening, but the system supporting it starts to wear down.
When stress gets ignored, small adjustments stop happening early and training keeps moving forward until something finally forces it to stop.
A Different Way to Move Forward
Respecting stress early keeps training consistent and aligned with long-term goals, instead of cycling through forced interruptions.
This doesn’t mean doing less or lowering your standards when stress shows up. It means making small, timely choices that keep the system intact.
Sometimes that looks like pushing a hard session back a day after poor sleep.
Sometimes it means swapping intensity for aerobic work, mobility, or strength when fatigue hasn’t cleared.
Sometimes it’s cutting a workout short when form or effort starts slipping instead of forcing the planned volume.
Work still gets done, but the focus shifts to match what your body can absorb right now.
When stress management is part of the process, training becomes easier to steer. You’re not guessing or forcing outcomes. The signals guide when to press, when to steady things, and when to change up your approach.
This approach keeps progress alive during long builds. You’re still training. You’re still growing. You’re just choosing the version of the work that supports consistency instead of risking a shutdown.
That’s how training stays sustainable as goals get bigger — by adjusting early, staying flexible, and keeping forward motion without fighting your own system.
“Training is about stress management, not stress elimination.” — Stephen Seiler
Signals are part of the work, not an obstacle to it. When they stay in the conversation, adjustments happen earlier, and training keeps moving instead of stopping and restarting.
Stress isn’t something to avoid. It’s something to manage while it’s still manageable. The goal is to train in a way that lets you keep showing up week after week without paying for it later.
I’ve written a lot this year about easing up in strategic ways for a reason. I’ve seen a lot of injuries and lost training time from people who kept pushing when small adjustments would have kept everything intact. In almost every case, the problem wasn’t one hard day. It was ignoring what was already building up.
What signal are you noticing right now that you’ve been pushing past instead of responding to?