A Little Fun

Tuesday I had this bright idea that after a long hard workout I would go hang out with a friend in a boat on Lake Washington. There’s not a lot of activity involved in this, but I did have to go to the gas station, help carry gas tanks, help prep the boat, dive in the lake, sit in a hot tub… you get the point. It was fun. Victor, meanwhile, had done similar training in the morning, but had spent his day relaxing, self-massaging, eating, drinking water… you get the idea.

When I got home he asked me how I felt, and I answered honestly, “great.” The next morning however, I was dragging my butt. Everything was supposed to be easy, but even the easy swim hurt. Swimming doesn’t hurt me! I’m not supposed to hurt on an easy swim! We finished out workouts and Victor asked how I felt. I answered honestly, “horrible.”

That was my first “learn from experience” lesson from my new coach. The lesson is": when you’re just getting used to a new training program, get as much recovery as you can.” and more importantly, “recovery is recovery.” Which is a little different than my previous philosophy, “if it doesn’t hurt, it must be recovery.”

Wednesday I took a slightly different tactic. After telling Victor how I felt I did my normal eating stretching and DVD watching routine, and kept my feet up, and ate more food, and took a nap. This morning I felt awesome. I got up on the first beep of my alarm, I had one of the best swim workouts of the season, and I was smiling through it all. I even got to beat up Victor on the bike, which was great fun.

Tomorrow I’ll feel great because I recovered today. I learned my lesson.

I’m currently watching the Democratic National Convention. C-Span is way more tolerable than the other channels because there is no commentator. I don’t understand why they pay people to talk about nothing during the breaks. They’re just talking heads. I’d rather watch Superbowl commercials.