Friday, November 15, 2013

enemy of my enemy is my friend


I sit here and wonderful what my spoils of war will be.  Will there be spoils?  I am doing an all-out remapping of my brain.   The true spoils of this war will be on the other side of this.  The other side of this, this addiction, the bad eating, the weakness of mind body and spirit will be a new man built not born.  This is no longer about losing weight.  It is about cleansing.  Out with the old in with the new, a new life, and the life I want.    However, war is hard and war has many enemies.  Too many to list here, however, I am learning war has allies too.  These allies are my allies.  The biggest ally I have in my war is the swim.  It is funny how the brain works.  The brain now is thinking of everything in terms of how I can swim better, harder, longer, faster and with better technique.  The swim has two enemies.  Now these enemies are my enemies.  The two enemies I see in front of me are fatigue and nutrition.  The body can endure much but only if that body is well taken care of.  It must have the correct amount of rest and the proper fuel.  My body hurts right now.  It hurts so badly, but it is a good hurt.  My arms have never throbbed like this from swimming, or my legs or my butt for that matter.  Everything hurts.  It makes me want to sleep.  You can’t sleep through a war.  When I was in the pool last night, I felt like I was dogging it.  Like I wasn’t pushing to my limits and working hard.  My form felt sloppy.  I question what I had eaten for lunch and before the swim.  I questioned my level of commitment to swimming correctly.  It all felt so god damned hard.  So, when I finished my burn, I was shocked to find out I had shaved ten minutes off my time from the prior week.   It was the 2nd day in a row though the body felt bad in the water and wanted to quit.  Told myself 1600 was enough.  However, two days in a row, I pushed.  I finished what I set out to do.  Wednesday night it was cramps.  My legs were cramping like crazy on kick drills.  Therefore, I think a combination of fatigue and lack of water had put me in bad shape.  I must change things and support my ally the swim in war.  I need to drink a ton of water and eating better foods to fuel the swims.  Because before the cramps kicked in on Wednesday I did bonk.  For those of you who are thinking I was bonking as in well you know, get you minds out of the gutter.  When I say bonk I mean I hit the proverbial wall where I am under nourished and I just have no energy left to give. This is a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by sudden fatigue and loss of energy. (Love you World Wide Web as I could not have said it better)  So it is pretty simple, I didn’t eat enough and drink enough before I got into do my burn and that is wrong.  I was not a good ally to my friend the swim and I need to get better.  In the end I pushed it.  I pushed it hard this week.  I did make it to 6,800 meters in three nights of swimming.  You can’t be that with a stick. Also, other things I am doing to make the swim better is I am studying film of other swimmers and watching coaching tapes.   I am such a nerd.  I quest to be the best swimmer I can be.  I know I will never meet my true dream of being first out in any race, but that doesn’t mean I can’t dream and work towards it. 

Anyway… I am prepared to take on these enemies of war and I will loving focusing my life on the swim and getting better at it. 

Going to see Sue soon.  Will be good to catch up with her as I have had a little one off disappointments this week, that I need to hash through and I am going to ask her to sponsor me in my battle against my food issues.  We are going to start working out a plain.

Also… this I the last week I will be living on my own for while… The Shiner is moving back to San Jose, and bringing her sidekick Rachel.  She moves in a week that is a big change.  I have lived alone the better part of 8 years.  The guest room is almost cleaned out.  The good thing is we have mutual goals: eating healthy and losing weight, being active, 70.3, and dreams of 140.6… oh I am talking about Rachel now not the Shiner.  Plus now I will have some to protect me from those damn serial killer neighbors and spiders.  I am talking about Shiner now not Rachel.

 

Anyway… happy weekends my good people… the sky is blue today and sun is out… life is getting better and really even in times of war isn’t that all we can ask for?

 

 

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