My 2025 Training Journal + Lessons Learned from Triathlon & Swim Training

I designed my simple workout-tracking spreadsheet way back in 2017 to help track triathlon training. I'd overtrained and given myself athletic-induced pnemonia that year, and in the aftermath, I realized that I'd done a ruinously bad job managing the three phases of triathlon training holistically. 

I got exhausted, and then I got sick. That was stupid. 

The problem is that I don't necessarily get sore when I switch sports a lot. So if I'm not careful, my total work load can sneak up on me from week to week. Most of the time when I get sick or injured, I can trace the cause to overwork the previous week or to stringing together too many heavy weeks in a row without a break. That was the case back in 2017, and it damn-near landed me in the hospital.

Twitter Threads: Sunday's Workout

This post is part of the Twitter Threads project. I posted this last Sunday.

2000 yards #swimming this morning. Did some tempo work & felt good doing it.

Life is good, friends.

— Danno E. Cabeza (@DannoECabeza) April 21, 2024

 

More Yoga Trapeze

Putting this out there in case you've been hoping for more pics or actual videos of yoga trapeze work.  If so, you're in luck.

New Year's Week Swim / Weights Workout Notes

Folks ask me for swimming workouts all the time.  It came up again over the weekend.  This post archives last week’s workouts.

I should note that I train on a four-week cycle -- three working weeks followed by a rest week.  I probably wouldn’t do it like that if I was training for a big swim meet and planning a taper.  However, these days I’m just a master’s class athlete trying to stay in decent overall physical shape.  The four week cycle helps me stay both healthy and sane in what would otherwise be a literally endless grind.  

I train with some seasonality for the same reasons, peaking as a swimmer in August for the Swim Across the Sound but spending more time in the gym through the fall and winter months to prep for ski season.  I never lift heavy, but if I'm being honest, I enjoy the gym more than the pool.  It just so happens that I'm a better swimmer than weight-lifter.

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.

4500 Yards Swimming (+ Basic Body Fat Analysis)

Long swim today.  And then I decided to rough-calc my body fat percentage.

If that sounds fun, read on!

Crunch: Weights, Swimming, & Recovery

I went into the Crunch gym in Stratford last weekend, and the guys at the front desk kind of gave me a hard time.  "Hey, we haven't seen you in here this year."

It's true.  Time really got away from me in the later part of the year.  With that, I leaned into the pool more than the weight room, and I swam okay, but that's about all I could say for myself.  I'm still battling a little hamstring pull, and that makes running tough, and between rain days and Christmas vacation, I wasn't even bike commuting over-much.  For several weeks, it was pretty much just swim-or-bust.

I finally got back into the weight room on Sunday, January 8th.  I kept it simple, but at least I went.  I then had class Tuesday night, and we shot the AFF podcast Wednesday, but with Sally's encouragement I went back to the gym Thursday, doing a slightly longer back/biceps workout.  I did a long set of pull-downs, some bent-over rows, and a few sets to work my core and lower back.

Blog in Review: Top 15 Posts of 2018

The 80/20 Rule is a basic business guideline.  It says that any business will get 80% of its revenue from just 20% of its offerings or services.  For example, we should expect McDonald’s to earn 80% of its revenue from just 20% of its menu items.  This makes sense; almost everyone orders either a Big Mac or a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese.  Really, most of the menu is revenue neutral; the only reason to even offer a lot of that stuff is to make it easier for Big Mac lovers to bring their non-Big Mac friends into the store.  It’s the Big Macs that are keeping McDonald’s in the black.

Happy New Year!

Blogging is the same but moreso.  Much more than half of this blog’s readership has come from a handful of posts, and the rest is here either to entertain me as a writer or to give legitimate fans of my writing a reason to come back on a semi-regular basis.

5 Things on a Friday: In the Top 10!

Happy Friday, everyone.  Let’s go!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving has become one of my favorite days of the year.  There aren't any presents to worry about, lots of football is on TV, and we have abundant friends to keep us in good cheer.  It's great!  This year, we're headed over to our friends Bruce and Tammy's house.  I don't even have to grill the turkey because Bruce is doing it.

I'm getting over!

#SBRLLR: Choosing Something Real (Part 1)

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

― President Abraham Lincoln

My buddy Joe rescued me in the way that only an old Army buddy can.

Joe and I had met back at Ft. Knox.  The Armor Captain’s Career Course ended with a capstone exercise, a brigade defense fought via computer battle simulation.  The event was primarily a staff exercise for which we were divided into four notional armor battalions with me and Joe serving as the leads on the same notional staff.  I served as our battalion’s operations officer, developing tactics and drafting the bulk of our group’s tactical orders.  Joe ran the staff itself as battalion XO.

#SBRLLR: Firstie (Part 5)

My dad retired from the Marine Corps at about the same time that the West Point Class of 1995 hit Branch Night.

Crunch: Entry-Level Weight-Lifting Concepts (Part 1)

Talking to my buddy the other day, I mentioned that I’d started taking my daughters to the gym again recently, and he got surprisingly interested.  He and his son met us on Tuesday, and when I showed him what we were doing, he said, “Oh wow.  You have, like, a plan and everything.  I always just come here and do maybe half an hour on the treadmill and then hit some of the machines.  I’ve never, like, tried to hit multiple muscle groups on purpose or anything.”

His son followed up with, “I always just do five sets on the leg-press machine and a bunch of arms.  This is cool.”

Crunch: Looking Forward to the Next Thing

If you’ve been following this blog, you will already know that I’m swimming across Long Island Sound with a few friends on August 4th.  Before you ask, yes, we could still use your support.  We’re a little more than $2K away from our fundraising goal with less than a month to go.  A few good-sized donations could put us over the top.  That would be very nice.

Crunch: Knowing When to Get Help

I had a physical a few years ago during which the doctor said, “You have to be careful when you train.  You know, you’re not Lance Armstrong.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “but I can train as hard as he does… at my level, anyway.”

Crunch: Holding On Tightly

I’ve been back in the weight room for a few months, back in the water for a few weeks, and running regularly for just over a fortnight.  I finally feel good.  I don’t feel quite like myself in the water just yet, but I feel better than I did.  And I caught myself having fun on the treadmill yesterday, so much so that I started doing tempo intervals at a 7:30/mile pace.  That’s not too bad.  I feel like I’m finally getting there.

But man, it also feels like it’s been a hard road back.

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.

Crunch: On Competition & the Value of Short Term Goals

I went skiing with my buddy Brian a few weeks ago.  Despite losing a day at Mount Snow to comically extensive airline delays, we wound up having a great time out at Okemo once we finally got out there.  We put in something like fifteen runs over the course of maybe five hours plus lunch.  It was enough that we staggered off the mountain at the end of it, exhausted but happy.  About the only thing that kept me awake on the drive home was Brian’s minute-by-minute updates on Army’s lacrosse game against perennial powerhouse Syracuse.

Crunch: Managing Weight Gain

I got into the gym a few months ago mostly because I needed a break from the pool.  I like swimming, and I will probably always feel more graceful in the water than I do on land, but it can be a grind.  Even if you’re swimming just two to three times per week, it can be mentally and emotionally exhausting trying to stay focused.  It’s not like there’s a lot of scenery.  You’ve got the little black line and whatever songs you can play back in your head.

Crunch: Hitting Our First Milestone

I was on the train home from work last Thursday night when my daughter texted me.

Thursday's texts

This was something of a milestone.  It was the first time that Hannah had ever pushed me to go to the gym.  After weeks of my pushing her, it seemed that we’d finally started a self-sustaining reaction.  She wanted to be there.  She actually wanted to get stronger.