I Learned Something Today

A couple of things, really. First, in spite of my best intentions, there is no way in tarnation I'm going to a master's swim class that starts at 7pm. No how! I clamored for my club to start a master's swim and I've loyally paid the extra $20 per month to be part of the group, but in the last two months, I've made it exactly one time.

I just can't sit around 2 1/2 hours for that class to start and I live too far away to go home and come back. Plus, I don't get home until after 9pm when I do go. I'm a person, for better or for worse, who really likes to a) be in bed by 8pm and/or b) get an absolute bare minimum of 8 hours of sleep, factoring in the usual hour each night that I read before actually falling asleep.

Along the same lines, the second thing I learned is I simply don't care to work out two days in a row. Well, I don't. Every triathlon plan these days tells you not only to work out 6 or 7 days a week, but twice per day on top of that. YOU MUST BE HIGHER THAN A KITE!!! (I'm having dejavu here, so I'm certain this paragraph appears in an earlier post, word for word-if you want originality, go on youtube)

It struck me today as I sat on the over 1 hour ride home on the train, brain still mis-firing from a pretty intense day of work, that back when I was in "fighting shape," the best shape of my life, I worked out every other day-which works out to 4 days per week-on those four days during my peak I was probably working out 3 1/2 per day. Granted, I wasn't training for an ironman, but I could run a 6 minute mile (21 minutes for three miles), I was benching a lot (230lbs, a lot for this scrawny frame) and riding to and from work and back and forth once again for lunch on my bike for probably 10 miles a day. I'll bet if I had embarked on an ironman back then, I would have completed it as quickly as I would now, and none the worse for the wear.

I'm a home body, I like to be home and figure for every hour away from home, I need at least two to recover. This is also part of the problem. How in THE hell do people work full time, do their home duties (prepare food, wash clothes, clean house, social life) and train. No way jose for me.

I've decided, against all greater wisdom, to try my old style of training. Four days a week, one on and one off. I'll probably work out longer on the days I do work out, but those recovery days are golden. I think it will greatly ameliorate the fatigue I often develop during triathlon training.

I may have gone off on this tangent before, but this time I'm going to try it for the Seattle Marathon as a test. If all goes well, I will also try it for the ironman training I'm planning next year.