Some Thoughts on Getting Older as an Adult Athlete

I put this up on Twitter and as an extended Instagram story.  No idea how many folks read it or cared, but I'm still feeling it, so...

The hardest thing about being an adult athlete – about getting older – is managing rest and recovery. Alas, your time as a collegiate competitor is poor preparation. To be good in college, you have to grind everyday like you’ve got a mental illness. Go full-gas all the time, or somebody’s gonna take your spot. Sometimes that sucks, but it’s rarely complicated.

Getting older isn’t like that. Even getting to full gas has gotten kind of rare. Days when I'm able to reach my actual potential and feel like myself in the water have become truly precious. It’s like finding a $20 on the sidewalk. I want to tell everyone I meet.

When you’re young, you can make training mistakes, and it doesn’t matter. Maybe you feel a twinge, but you ride through and try to learn from it. That’s youth’s purpose. In my mid-40s, though, I’m guaranteed an injury when I make a mistake. Margin for error has become non-existent. Staying in the game means being perfect all the time.

I don’t love it.

I took a couple of weeks off after the Swim Across the Sound – by design. Needed the break mentally, and anyway, I wanted to get back in the weight room heading into ski season. I snowboard, and I’m not bad. But I’m as aggressive on the slopes as I am everywhere else, so I need to be ready to take a pounding.

However, this has not helped my swimming, and certainly not in conjunction with everything else. I’ve been back in the water for about two weeks. Those first 2-3 workouts were like a foretaste of Hell, but I finally felt a little like myself Monday morning.

Afterwards, though, I felt like I had a hangover.

I see all these Fit Chicks on Instagram, and they make me laugh. Girl, talk to me when you’re 45, have two kids in high school, and have half your mortgage paid down.

Alas, swimming at a high level takes a lot of commitment. You can swim once or twice a week and compete in your local triathlon. Taking on Real Swimmers takes a good bit more preparation.  That’s probably true of every sport. I’ve ridden with Real Cyclists a few times, and it’s not at all like riding with your triathlon buddies.

After a weekend of swimming hard and lifting hard, I had a pulled neck muscle and overwhelming full-body apathy. I made a point of stretching before and especially after I got off the bike yesterday morning, and I finally feel better. But man, that sucked.

I’ll finish this by noting that I really, really admire folks who can compete at a reasonably high level in multiple sports at the same time. I have to focus completely if I want to get anywhere, and it’s so frustrating. It didn’t bother me when I was young, but everything takes so much work now. Ugh.

Anyway, that’s what you have to look forward to. Cheers!