Management Mode

Since the low point last week, I've put myself in management mode and I'm sure I'm not alone. I'm sure most athletes unknowingly are in a natural state of management in order to prevent injuries. I've been doing it the past three years with this glute thing, and now I have to add this bladder/pissing/nether region thing. I was feeling fit and thus, I started to play around with races in my head, specifically a half-mary in early February. To prepare, I stepped on the track to do mile repeats and when the smoke cleared, the result was 11 miles of running. Normally, my body would have no problem with this work load, but post 50-mile trail race and the pissing incident, I guess my body is more fragile and well, it complained with yet more pissing. The symptoms were more mild this time around and I was able to resume a 5-mile run by Sunday. The past weekend included some more awesome rides in near perfect weather, but I'll refrain from saying the "H" word so as to prevent the "L" word from rearing it's ugly head.

On Saturday, I rode with a former student of mine, and he reminded me that I'm old. During a climb, he was pushing the pace and I became keenly aware of his breathing, specifically how fast and hard it was. And I thought to myself, I can't recall the last time I breathed that hard. So I tried to match his breathing by increasing my effort, and well, I felt like I would pass out before I matched his breathing. I just couldn't go there breathing-wise so instead, I went there muscular-wise. I mashed those gears and slowly, his breathing diminished, not because he was slowing down, but because the old teacher was dropping his young ass, ha ha ha! I'm sure I just won the first of many battles to come. And now, speaking of management and old people, my friend Jason sent me this link looking at the aging muscles of triathletes: