Training vs Recovery
I started talking with Doug H. at the last two races I've done. He's 55, and a legend of speed in our parts. I mean, I've qualified for the ITU world's in both sprint and Oly, and he's 6 and 14 minutes faster than I am, respectively. Luckily, we'll never be in the same age group, so we can safely talk training and racing strategy without having to strain our comments through the veil of competition.
He's got decades of endurance base training behind him, and consequently a body devoid of any visible fat molecules. When he races, his face contorts into a grim death mask of agony - from the time he gets out of the water, he looks like he is about to keel over from the intensity of his effort.
I asked him why he works so hard in races, and he gave two reasons, "I don't want my daughter to catch me. And I don't train enough to make it easy."
He has three daughters, and his youngest is quickly catching up to him, meaning she can beat me by about a minute or two on those shorter races, without doing any real training at all.
But it was his training schedule that got me. "I do about one hour a day of cardio work" - meaning swimming, biking, or running - "maybe 60 miles of biking, 8 miles of running [don't know if I really believe this], and a couple of mornings in the pool."
"You used to do more?'
"Oh, sure, but I kept getting injured. I think I need more time to recover after workouts now, than I did 15-20 years ago. And if I do more, anyway, I start to break down. My feet hurt, my knees hurt ... you know. I like this; I want to keep going to the World's every year. So most of my really hard work is right here at a race. The rest of the time, I'm just putting in the miles, and some strides each week to keep the speed in my legs."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, I've started two weight sessions a week" - remember, the guy looks like a classic pencil-necked geek - "I think we need that now, for strength and balance."
Recovery, so important for any endurance athlete, is paramount at our age. As a surgeon, I have been observing recovery from physician-inflicted trauma for nearly 40 years. What takes a 17 y/o a week to heal from, might take a 70 y/o 2+ months. One of my little theories of life is that we are in a constant state of repair and recovery, and death becomes inevitable when the pace of breakdown starts to exceed the pace and ability of the body to repair. That might be the rate-limiter for my athletic career - when I need so much time to recover, that I can't train anymore.
Comments
Fascinating. Great post.
Reporting from the view in my current lens, I can't believe how much better I'm holding up in these last weeks of IMWI training. Why? I think it's a couple of important reasons:
1. This one is immutable...Being hypothyroid and undiagnosed nearly did me in. I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on. In the final weeks before the diagnosis, I literally could not run 2 miles without stopping, and I was gaining weight inexplicably.You have to be healthy (duh) to be able to play this game. But if, like me, you run around all out of whack and can't get to the bottom of it, no amont of training vs. rest will work. In short, if you think something is really off physically, exhaust every option trying to figure it out.
The fallout from the hypo is that I have gotten slower--O2 uptake is diminished a bit, and I have made peace with that. WI will be a challenge. But the thyroid meds are working, and I got my other hormones regulated. I feel the best I have in decades. I ask myself if this is how you all have felt all along??? I can't believe the difference. I want to play at this triathlon game for as long as I can, so getting regulated in order to do so at our age can require interventions.
2. You all know of my husband's serious bike accident. For two weeks I was under immense stress. I did a total of 3 swims (to clear my head), and one unplanned FT test b/c I was so flippin' mad at the universe I just rode until I couldn't anymore. As P said, at some level my body was resting. When things settled down, I came back feeling like an animal. I think those two weeks of physical down time, even under those circumstances, did me a world of good. Just today I started feeling some fatigue, but until now I have not including this whole week after a RR and 2:15 and 2:30 runs. Jury is out, but I think taking a mid-season training break--a real physical hiatus--might really work well for the boomers (everyone really). Thing is, I doubt people would do it.
Not sure this is exactly on topic, but I learned a lot through these ordeals, and thought I'd share.
PS--written quickly b/c I'm on a deadline, so excuse any bad writing!
Thanks for the share. Reminds me of limiting reagents in chemistry. All the work in the world is worthless without recovery. Recovery is very individual. I suck in the recovery aspect. Poor genes? Diet is better than average but not stellar. Might it be that I wrk standing all day, wrestling with acute low backs, bad hips, torn rotators, etc, 2 ex-wives, 5 boys in the house.... Too many variables but if we individually don't understand what it takes to recognize our shortcomings with regards to recovery then we might want to consider poker or golf.
Always appreciate your perspective.
Vince
forever tweaking,
P
Anyway, just another testimonial on less is more....haven't gotten back in the weightroom yet though ( I'm one of those guys who still will put on muscle fairly easily and I like the "faster" me, not the "buffed" me. Easy to say that when you cross half century !