Crunch: Too Much, Too Soon

You may remember me talking a bit about executing a “kamikaze fitness attack” for my buddy’s APFT last time out.  It probably sounded like at least half of a dumb idea, am I right?

Yeah.  It kinda was.

It’s been a humbling week, honestly.  If my mother was still alive, she’d be delighted.

Army Swimming teammates from the Class of '95.
Click here to support us with the Swim Across the Sound.

I’d been in the gym the most and therefore hit the weights hardest to start.  However, I paired this with a small collection of long swim workouts for which my body wasn’t ready, especially when paired with heavy weight training, and I added in a bit of running for good measure.  Coming from virtually nothing in terms of my overall fitness base, this proved a bad idea.  I wound up exhausted, with sleep problems stemming from acute overtraining, and with a set of badly pulled muscles in my neck and upper back that hurt so much that I couldn’t turn my head for almost a full week.

Oops.

The worst part is that I know better.  I’ve been a Master’s athlete for some time now, and I’ve been working out competitively much longer than that, and I’ve known for a while that the first and most important rule of athletics is that you have to be healthy and available for competition if you want to score points for your team.  Moreover, there’s no universe in which fitness is a story of overnight success.  In fact, I’ve written about this very thing for this column.  

But here we are.  I got excited, and that made me stupid, and then I got hurt.  That’s how it happens sometimes.

I was lucky, honestly, because the injury itself wasn’t too bad.  I took a week off from weights at the same time that I made a deliberate effort to stretch more at nights while going longer and slower in the pool, and that slowly but surely put me back to rights.  I still don’t feel great, but the exhaustion is gone, and my sleep problems mostly went with it.  Now I just have to be disciplined and consistent, and eventually I’ll work myself back into shape.  

It’s a process.

During the 2017 Swim Across the Sound.
My personal Swim page is here.

I should note that I let myself get much fatter and slower than I meant to over the course of the winter offseason.  And yeah, I enjoyed the break, and I enjoyed skiing, but man, I also feel like I have a long way to go.  I’ve been exchanging workouts with some of my teammates from the Army Swim Team, and those guys are all crushing me.  I mean, they are smoking me bad.  It’s gonna take discipline and quite a bit of focus to get back to an acceptable level of fitness, for real.  That’s the humbling part.

But that’s what friends are for, right?

I have three goals now.  First, the APFT with Brian at the end of April.  Second, the Swim Across the Sound with my teammates at the beginning of August.  Third, the Tour de Cure NYC bike ride with my work colleagues at the end of September.  With all of this, I’ve slowly been working towards a total weekly schedule that looks something like this:

Monday: Bike-commute / Rest

Tuesday: Bike-commute / Swim (3000 to 3500 yards)

Wednesday: Bike-commute / Weights

Thursday: Bike-commute / Run

Friday: Bike-commute / Rest

Saturday: Swim (4000 to 4500 yards)

Sunday: Weights / Run

As of this writing, my plan is to hold this basic concept through Memorial Day.  Then I’ll transition to swimming 3 x week by replacing Sunday’s run with another swim. I’ll then switch it up again after the Swim Across the Sound, cutting back my overall yardage in the pool while adding a long ride either Saturday or Sunday in preparation for the Tour de Cure.

Honestly, the biggest keys will be getting enough sleep and staying on task.  That’s not always easy with a family of four, but I’m not doing any of this alone.  If I were, I’m not sure I’d make it.  

But that’s why we need teammates.  That’s why we’re a team.

* * *

Shoutout to the Swim Across the Sound: It's a 15-mile open water swim done to support St. Vincent Medical Center's Cancer Center.  The Swim provides money for cancer research and support for families going through cancer and cancer treatments.  

It is by far my favorite charity.

Team RBG -- for Rock the Black & Gold -- is committed to raising $7500 in support of the Swim.  If you can help, we badly need your support.

Thank you!