Easy, Medium, Hard
Every day is not the same, so don’t treat them as such. Your workout has to fit into your day which has to fit into your life priorities and your targeted life objectives.
When I was pushing hard for 2000 meters in the beginning, I needed copious hours to repair and regenerate. I needed naps, quiet time to enjoy my private body agony and maybe some TV time laying on my back, rehydrating with soup and grapefruit juice.
The day I met Jillian was going to be ambitious but then like a flash Hawaiian storm it suddenly turned into mandatory easy-day as the bottoms of both feet began cramping uncontrollably.
Swim Life is like that and permit me again to add that paying attention to my body’s ache is how I met my first swim guide.
Are you in it to win it, going the distance? Ooh big tough swimmer, but what’s your actual win, today? Plus, what are your bigger actual commitments. I hope the roar of your day doesn’t reduce you to the meow of your foreseeable future.
If you do create the body capacity of a distance swimmer, it’s important to recognize it will not be done in a single day which means - none of the individual days you occupy are of particular importance.
Collectively they are important,,that is true, but each of them singly is only a big deal as seen on a larger broader path.
Being on or off the hook like that matters a lot to finding the motivation to do - whatever. Yoi need to know that a small effort is still a valid effort.
This workout might be temporary or maybe it will continue for years. Time will tell. Mine is now over 5 years but over two years of that were sidelined by injury.
I had to adjust my goals downward due to chronic pain, many times.
When you’re doing this, you’ve somehow got to keep doing it.
You might have to make yourself do it at first because of lacking motivation, but you must not force yourself to do it in the face of occupational, functional pain.
Later I found I miss doing it if I skip it. In the beginning I had to look in the mirror a lot. I wasn’t staring at my fat or my shame, I was glaring into my own eyes over all the lies and excuses I’d so fluidly come to accept.
One of the swim stars finally suggested that shorter goals were an important progression, which is what I’m doing now.
Busting out 40 laps in 40 minutes after your 50th birthday is big. You cannot mess up - you cannot take your eye off the ball.
You want to do it before you’re 60 — losing motivation and becoming injured are the same kiss of terminal death.
Small injuries risk taking me out of the event at this age; luckily I’ve now adjusted my form and expectations to prevent that.
The training schedule is a feat of mind. We’ve got this, but we still need to get it, no breakdowns.
The Goldilocks training zone
Hard day is not every day.
Get Swimly 40 Laps 40 Minutes’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I only do hard days very rarely.
The hard-day decision happens in the presence of mid activity.
There’s a fine balance between taking important time off
vs dropping the excuses and making important time on. Use care with your self talk and recognize when being lazy causes to to fool yourself or being pushy creates damage.
A day off is healing or entropy - a day on is under performance or over exertion or something in between. So you’re either at rest or in motion too much, all the time. Its kind of baffling.
Your momentum must include all parts of your schedule like eating, sleep, work, commute.
You’ve got to solve all of your swim problems one at a time and they are many - so dig in.
There is no margin for error - if you overdo it or are injured, you might not ever come back. Ever.
You cannot be a person who goes too hard. If you walk away wrong, you might not return. At this age you are sure to have many other things competing for your attention.
Don’t cause the activity to not "stick" by over pressuring yourself then not living up to it.
When we are young there is more room for error. These days, if I can place myself in high exertion, I feel fortunate.
It’s when my medium days are underwhelming or unsatisfying, thats when it’s time to go hard.
Stamina takes a long time - get accustomed to easy & medium.
Almost anything I do has permission to be an easy day.
Easy and medium days are the training bread and butter.
This has to remain as a rewarding activity so
don’t give yourself shame.
You’ll burn out from that, leave and be gone and that is failure.
No medium days yet either. Not until the workout itself is completely pain-free or a suitable accommodation that doesn’t make pain worse.
Do you need to lose weight? Lose it in the kitchen. Gyms are for strength, not getting hurt.
Everything is easy day while resolving body pain plus energy, sleep, food life, adult struggles.
These lie beneath surface of the activity. These are the first months of swim training.
Don’t be the Januario quitter.
Every day is easy day, then mid.
