Friday Mad Science: Rest Week Edition

Now that it’s Friday of Rest Week, I can begin to see just how necessary that rest really was. 

I typically train on a four week schedule: three weeks hard, one week easy.  It’s a little different than the way I trained as a swimmer—when we used to train eight or ten weeks hard and then three or four weeks easy—but at age 38, I find the four week schedule to be much more sustainable over time than a more hardcore approach would be.  It’s a lot easier on my body and a lot more conducive to the demands of real life.  Among other things, overtraining the way that young competitive swimmers do tends to make me grouchy, and nobody like a grouchy daddy.  Last week was actually Week 4 for me without a Rest Week, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that I started to notice decided grouchy tendencies in myself late in the week.

Still, it can be tough to diagnose overtraining by degrees of grouchiness especially because I think most athletes will want to treat emotional issues and general irritability with more training rather than less.  I dealt with my father’s death by taking up triathlon, I’ve been dealing with my mother’s death by riding my bike more and basically doubling down on the triathlon lifestyle, and along with all of that, my usual self-prescription for any issue of stress or emotional difficulty is pretty much always the same thing— swim, bike, or run.  Exercise gives a mental and emotional break from stress, and it gives an endorphin rush that helps, too.  And over time, you feel better when you exercise, which in turns makes you more resilient to stress.  So exercise is all good.  It’s even a little addicting, and it can therefore be quite difficult to realize when you need to back down.  The dedicated athlete does not typically respond to a sub-par workout by saying, “Obviously I need to start taking it easy.”  No, a more typical response by far is, “Man, what is wrong with me?  I need to start kicking it in the ass!  Come on, let’s go!”

This is why it’s good to have a plan.  This is why it’s important to stick to that plan. 

I wasn’t feeling particularly tired last week.  I had maybe two sub-par workouts.  Truth be told, had I simply gotten some sleep, eaten right, and planned my next set of workouts a little more carefully, I might’ve worked through it.  Probably would have.  But I would have kept getting grouchier and grouchier, and eventually, I’d have put myself at risk for an overuse injury.  This is part of the challenge of training for an endurance sport. 

Was I overtrained?  Probably not, at least from a technical standpoint.  For example, my resting heart rate wasn’t elevated.  But I was getting tired, I was getting grouchy, and as I’ve said before, it’s not like I’m on scholarship here.  And I was tired.  We can see that just by the fact that here it is Friday, and I’m only now starting to feel better.  I’ve got to be Daddy, Engineer, and Triathlete.  Bottom line, that takes balance.

Anyway, I’m feeling better now.  I’m gonna swim a little tonight, and then Sally, the kids, and I are all heading up to Six Flags: New England tomorrow for a day of rollercoasters, Batman, and Johnny Rockets.  Frankly, I can’t wait.

***

Alright, so you might’ve noticed that I’ve been putting up a bunch of YouTube videos recently.  I’ve been doing that basically because I’ve been trying really hard to have some kind of new content on the site every day, but I don’t necessarily have time to write a full blog post every single day.  So on the days when I’m basically swamped, I tend to just go to YouTube, grab something cool, and throw it up there.  You can feel free to watch or not, I don’t care, but I want you to have a reason to check the site every day, and if the possibility of an interesting YouTube video is enough to make that happen, then, well, I’m not too proud to use the tools that are available to me.

With that in mind, I’ll also mention that our new Honda Pilot came with satellite radio installed, and as you might imagine, I’ve been listening to nothing by Hair Nation ever since.

So.  Like “two great things that taste great together,” I’ve decided that what we really need around here is a new feature called Hair Metal Friday. 

Today’s installment is Great White’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.”