VOLUME 2: Starting my SoCal Fitness Journey
2014
2014 and what was left of it when I got to LosAngeles, was a time in which I barely figured out my Journey to come. I had really no idea of how I wanted to get in shape, I just knew I needed to start somewhere.
Stressed and sleep deprived since the move to LosAngeles a mere 4 days before, I drove to a local park by my house called ‘Chatsworth Oaks Park’ and ran a measly 1.01Miles. It was miserable, it was all I could do, it was 101 degrees Fahrenheit, hot as hell, and my throat was parched. I was definitely back in Southern California!
I ran that 1.01Mile in 14:21, and I couldn’t have run any faster to save my life. I ran hesitantly to shield knees and Achilles tendons, yet I still felt twinges and some pain. Fortunately, even before I finished, my mind was already racing ahead with visions of training, racing, fitness, agility, and limitless energy.
The trouble was that being so detuned, running was not necessarily the most desirable sport to get back in shape with starting out. I had intermittent issues with my right achilles tendon and left knee, and the repetitive pounding of running would likely complicate the situation.
I needed to get back to an environment of structured training in order to jump start my Journey. Fortunately again, I was to find that at Pierce junior college, the agricultural school I had mentioned in Volume 1, Part 3 previously and had attended in 1972 .
It turns out that the swim coach there was none other than a star swimmer from my Cal State Northridge days, the University I had graduated from in 1976 and ’85. Funny how life has a habit of coming back around!
Coach Judy, a star butterflier, was on the swim team at CSUN in 1984. In 2014, she still had some records standing. She in turn, was coached by Pete Accardy (RIP) who led both Men’s and Women’s swim teams to numerous State and National titles in the decades of the 80s and 90s.
I had swum with her at various pools back then. I knew the caliber of her training. I was very fortunate to find her at Pierce and started training with her .
To my dismay, she was coaching her last Master’s swim session that summer 2014 when we met. She suggested I should sign up as a student at Pierce College in the Fall so I would be eligible to take her pre-season swim team conditioning class, which was a tune up for her athletes on the swim team the following Spring season 2015. So that’s what I did!
At 61, I went back to Junior College, to swim with 18 and 20 year olds who were training to be on the swim team the following spring. What a rush If I could pull it off and not wilt! Amazingly, I pulled it off and was swimming in lane 7, not with the hot shots, not with the slowest, but with the middle of the packers. I was totally satisfied with that:)
This then, was my main focus for the rest of 2014, just to get back to a semblance of structured training. Progress showed quickly, and I was training my mind and body at the same time. Swimming was easy on my body, I could train without the specter of injury. Still, I was itching to prove myself running!
So again, that’s precisely what I did by running the ‘Santa to the Sea 5k’. I had entered the race way back in September, and since I own December, there was no way I wouldn’t run it.
The conditions were idyllic for running: low 50s, just a few hundred runners, flat by the Ocean, a mix of streets and running path, clean Ocean air with lots of Seagulls and bobbing boats at 7am on an overcast Sundae morning! What more can you ask for?
Unfortunately, I just couldn’t put the hammer down! The right Achilles tendon and right Hamstring issue had been haunting me since my 1st run in July, and on top of that I had exacerbated it just 2 weeks before the race.
I had been running only 5-6 Miles per week in preparation, and only consistently for 4 weeks, which is entirely inadequate and courts injury!
I do stupid things like that, I’m my own worst enemy (a concept I will revisit extensively on this site).
The net result of all this: a fair amount of speed with zero endurance! This is illustrated by going through the 1st half of the race at 7:30 pace; but finishing the race at an average pace of 8:50 minutes per Mile!
But I had a great time, met lots of people, and I could now call myself a ‘Runner’:)
2015
Too much, too soon! That was how my progression went in 2015. In my exuberance to run, I managed to train badly enough to race my 2nd 5k on March 15th, Saint Patrick’s day. I promptly injured both Achilles tendons, which of course caused various gait compensations, which in turn resulted in more knee issues! I didn’t run for the next 2 months.
I turned of course to cycling. Biking had always been my weakest sport, so being forced into the bike was a good move for me. Like swimming, the bike is a non impact activity as you’re supported by the saddle and cranks. While my running injuries were mending and I couldn’t run, I could bike and feel just fine, AMAZING!
I trained well enough, but I felt something was missing as my progress was slow to negligible. I started cycling with a friend who introduced me to ‘The Rose Bowl ride’. The Rose Bowl is the famous stadium in Pasadena that hosts the yearly Rose Bowl parade each New Year.
I was totally outclassed for this ride, a very humbling experience that caused me serious reflection on my current state of athletic ability as concerns cycling.
The Rose Bowl ride consists of about 50-80 ‘roadies’, riding a 3.1Mile perimeter on the streets around the Stadium. Nothing spectacular about that, except they ride at anywhere from 20-35 miles per hour. My first day, I stayed with the pack for maybe a few 100 yards before being dropped on the first acceleration. Three months later, I could barely last 1/2 lap.
This had a profound effect on me. While I’ve had formal training in swimming and running, cycling has always been a self coached endeavor. Maybe it would be a smart idea to train for cycling systematically as I did for swimming and running, the disciplines I had formal training in?
During this time, I had started to run ever so cautiously, and while I was mending with various self applied therapies, I just felt that overall, I was going nowhere fast. I could run but only with caution; I could bike but was totally outclassed at the Rose Bowl; I could swim but fell off training after Judy’s pre season swim training ended in December 2014.
I had a lot of energy, but it was just bouncing off the walls, there was no focus to that output.
Then, in fall 2015 I swam with Coach Judy again in the pre-season swim team conditioning class. What bliss, how heavenly! I just show up to practice and swim my brains out. No need to dream up a training session, no need to think about what to do; just show up and do it! And I know Judy will build the workouts to tap the maximum from her swimmers as they get fitter and fitter.
Then it hit me, an epiphany of gargantuan proportion! Just as the human body does, I THRIVE ON STRUCTURED TRAINING! No thought process, it’s all designed ahead of time; all I need to do is extract every ounce of energy I’m able to muster.
To boot, I’m swimming with 20 year olds who will be on the swim team the following fall and I’m doing their training, very empowering at 62 years of age!
Towards the end of Fall training, an opportunity presented itself. I had the opportunity to become a LosAngeles county Lake lifeguard the following summer. But first, I would have to qualify in December by swimming 1000 meters in 18 minutes or less.
This would definitely boot me out of my comfort zone, I would be competing against teen age and 20 year old team swimmers for a spot. This was the real world calling, another rush!
It was now or never, I had come back to great swimming shape, I did it on a dare to myself. If I earned a spot, what a motivation that would be! I could also get some specific open water training at Castaic lake in preparation for Ocean racing later on, with Triathlons being the ultimate goal.
So on May 22nd 2016, I would become the oldest LACounty lifeguard to complete the Academy at 62 years of age (I know, I’m getting ahead of myself).
So the takeaway for 2015 was that the learning curve was much more than physical ability alone!
2016
My body responded to structured training so well, I continued swim training through the NewYear, in view of the LosAngeles County Lifeguard Academy to debut in April. I was making great progress regaining my fitness from the 1980s. I felt it was all coming together finally, at least in the swimming department. I wanted to be ready for 6 weeks of Academy, meaning swimming, running, push ups, sit ups, burpees, and whatever other torture the Instructors could dream up.
While the harsh physical aspect of the Academy was going to be a challenge for sure, I had the psychological aspect in the bag. Having been through the US Marines’ and US Army’s boot camps, as well as the brutality of 82ND Airborne Jump School, I was looking forward to the abuse. This would be fun, I couldn’t wait:)
Then, disaster struck:( Just 5 weeks prior to the start of Lifeguard Academy, I blew my right knee out practicing Triathlon surf entries at Venice beach.
The pain was excruciating, it took me 35 minutes to hobble back to my car which was only 4 blocks away! I really should have been on crutches that day. The pain was so intense, I spent the next couple weeks being woken by it at all hours of the night. The days of course, were miserable.
I went into overdrive with therapy and it worked. After having an MRI to make sure the basic integrity of the knee was not compromised and nothing was torn (beyond mild degeneration due to age), I applied all my knowledge to making me whole again in time for the Academy.
It worked flawlessly. While I struggled with injuries all through the Academy (even a short bout with the flu), the Lifeguard Academy didn’t test my body or mind to its limits by any means (what a relief!). That will come with an Ironman Triathlon sometime in the future.
Working at the lake was a blast that summer. Surrounded and interacting with kids 40 years my junior was humbling and motivational. I reconnected with the spirit that life lies ahead of you and anything is possible if you just do it.
This was the year I realized and made the connection that indeed, I could become physically and mentally what I had been 30 years prior, at the height of my budding Triathlon adventure.
Since I had the entirety of lake Castaic to myself (close to Magic Mountain in Santa Clarita, CA), I did a lot of open water swimming those 3 months.
No flip turns, no lane lines, no interruptions, it was just swimming for 30-60 minutes straight. It brought back the art of navigation and sighting, the other unsung crucial aspects to open water swimming.
I was on such a swimming kick that year, I was eager to train with coach Judy once more in the fall.
That brought a conclusion to the year 2016 in which I totally reconnected to the water medium. I had found once more the technique of swimming like a fish, being slippery through the water, not fighting it.
In the midst of this liquid reawakening, I knew however that my running and biking ability lagged very far behind. I didn’t do this on purpose, but blowing out my right knee at the beach on March 13th didn’t allow for either biking or running.
That I managed to start the Lifeguard Academy just 5 weeks later and graduate is a testament to my body’s healing ability as well as my knowledge of how to fix it.
So, for 2017, I had a bit of homework to do to catch up in Biking and Running.
2017
After Summer 2016 with LosAngeles County Lifeguards, and more swim training in the fall; it was time to reflect and critically analyze where my efforts were leading me in the realm of Triathlons. So on December 28th 2016, Day975 of training, my 63rd birthday, I sat down with myself and had a long conversation.
On January 22nd, 2017, I reached Day1000 of this training Journey. That in itself was an accomplishment, training 1000 days toward a specific goal.
Now that I had swum for the past year and had been off of running for so long, I planned to ease back into running for the 1st few months of the year. My aim was to replicate my swimming success in running.
I planned to join the ‘Basin Blues’, the running club which had been responsible for my 5k PR of 17:12, way back in 1987. Coach Connely was still coaching, I had it made!
On Valentine’s day, February 12th, I was ready to test the running program I had designed for myself. This was my 3rd 5k race since my return to SoCal. I planned it meticulously and trained nearly flawlessly and consistently from the start of the year.
However, Though I was consistent, I only ran 8-10Miles per week, not an adequate amount for racing.
Still, I managed to run the Valentine 5k in 25:58 which translates to 8:22 per Mile pace, quite an improvement from the Santa2Sea race 2years prior, running at 8:50pace. I was happy, this was going in the right direction. One month later, I ran the Shamrock 5k on the same course on St Patrick’s day in 26:06 and promptly injured my left Achilles tendon.
From then on, it just wasn’t a running year. For the better part of 2017, I fought multiple injuries, managed them, made running comebacks, only to get injured again and repeat the cycle.
I never made it to the Basin Blues, I never ran more than 3 Miles without pain of some type. This cycle of injury and comebacks persisted until September when I came to my senses. Frustrated to no end, I again turned my attention to cycling.
As running was again on the back burner, I recalled biking at the Rose Bowl and the exhilaration of reaching 25-30mph on flat ground, (even for mere seconds) . I decided I probably needed structure to get to such a level on my own, so I decided to dig up an old cycling training book I had kept around since 1987. The book cover was gone, the hardcover faded with water spots, but the content was sound.
The title is the ‘Complete book of Bicycling’, by none other than Greg LeMond, the 1st American to win the Tour de France. He actually won it 3 times, so I guess he knows what he’s talking about.
As I reread what I had 30 years ago, I realized nothing was new under the sun, and I had forgotten entirely what I had read so long ago.
Rereading the book, it dawned on me how training on the bike was so similar to the structured training I’ve had with swimming and running. Reading the book also brought to mind that all Triathlons are skewed in favor of the cycling leg.
In an Ironman, the cycle leg of 112Miles is 79.6% of the overall distance of 140.6Miles. Shorter distance Triathlons have that same handicap. The more I thought about this point, the more urgent and critical the necessity of being an outstanding biker became to me. So that’s exactly what I did!
On September 11th 2017, day 1238 of training, I set aside an entire year of training dedicated solely to cycling. I sat down with pen and paper an mapped out an entire year of training. I patterned this training directly from the program Greg LeMond designed for himself through his professional cycling career.
Of course, I adapted this to my needs and abilities at 64 years of age.
In order to dedicate myself and energies solely to cycling, I elected to swim and run in an unstructured way, fitting sessions wherever I felt was appropriate. I felt great anticipation and couldn’t wait to start my year long cycling program, I looked forward to the structured training I designed for myself.
In fact, gains in cycling for the rest of 2017 were spot on and simply amazing. Progress came very quickly, both in speed and endurance. I could predict what stage of fitness I would reach as long as I did the training I designed for myself. I felt I finally had a handle on how my body best responded to cycling in order to take my ability to the next level of performance.
2018
Continuing my cycling focus from 2017 into 2018, I was making quick and noticeable progress in my cycling ability. While my cycling gains made me a happy man, I had been quite dejected with the running arena. This always frustrated and perplexed me, as I continued to have issues with my right Achilles tendon and the left knee.
While the focus for most of 2018 would be biking, I did start running, though not very much as not to interfere with biking. To my surprise, I made good progress so that by the end of April, I was starting to break 9 minutes per mile again on some 3 Mile runs. This on only 10 miles per week running. I was quite happy with this.
Then, several unfortunate events happened in rather quick succession!
On a 3 mile run on May 9th, I injured the left calf. Fortunately, I was still in dedicated cycling mode, and this injury did not inhibit cycling, so I decided not to run and let the injury heal organically.
In short order however, the Mother of all accidents happened! On June 17th, Father’s day, I CRASHED THE BIKE! It was a rainy morning (when ever does it rain in SoCal in June?), and I was prepped and ready for an 85-90 miler north towards Ventura harbor via the 118 freeway. About 40miles out, under a building rain, I encountered railroad tracks.
Railroad tracks are “THE” mortal enemies of skinny road bike tires (especially in the rain), and while I jumped the 1st set of tracks just fine, this caused my front wheel to slip and skid into the grooves of the 2nd set of RR tracks.
From passing motorists who stopped to bring me ejected water bottle, pump, and tools, I hear my crash was rather spectacular as I and bike flipped upside down, seeming to hang in mid air momentarily.
There I was, dazed and confused, lying on the pavement in the fetal position under what now was a pouring rain. As I starred at my bike lying in the ditch, I was hopping and praying I would not get run over by cars in the early morning fog. Did I mention I was in pain?
As it so happened, a paramedic on his way to work stopped, turned on his emergency lights, and asked if I was ok or needed an ambulance? Not wanting any more attention, I quickly sized myself and bike up and thanked the nice young man. As I pondered my condition (did I mention I was in pain?), I figured that the most beneficial thing I could do was to get back on the bike and keep moving to reduce inflammation, promote circulation, and thereby reduce the trauma response.
So that’s what I did! having nearly come to the 1/2 way point in my ride, I rode another 5 miles to my planned turn around. Funny thing was that by the time I reached the turn around, the pain had nearly disappeared and I felt strong once again.
I think I was more affected psychologically than physically. It actually turned out to be a nice ride home, the rain had stopped.
Though I was able to get back on the bike 3 days later, psychologically I had lost my appeal and dedication to continue to term my year long training quest on the bike. As my cycling enthusiasm waned, I once again turned my attention to running.
Within 2 months, I could run 3 milers comfortably again at 8:50 per mile pace in training. This was great, until on September 10th, when I once again re-injured the left knee! I was no longer in a good place physically or psychologically! I couldn’t run, I felt lackluster about the bike, and the pool I swam in was closed for annual maintenance.
As September wore on, I also started feeling the pressure of looking for houses as well as packing because our lease was up at the end of November. Life was now joining the act and getting in the way!
In early November, the California wildfires burst on the scene. Air quality was terrible for weeks as the fires came within a mile of my house. There was also tremendous uncertainty as there was talk of mandatory evacuation.
November 19th was moving day, and if that wasn’t hectic enough, for the next two weeks I returned to the former house to clean it and the 1/2 acre it sits on.
December was devoted to the ills and pains of settling into a new house and routine. Putting up the Christmas tree and decorations (though always a sacred and cherished time) had an unfortunate rushed component this year!
So it seems that 2018 which started off with a bang, started unravelling with the bike crash, and then progressively fizzled out with more injuries and life getting in the way by end of year.
2019
While 2018 concluded with a stale mate, I drew quite a few earth-shattering conclusions from these setbacks, the most salient of which I will share below. Caught in the aftermath of moving, I spent most of January dialing in what I think is a radical departure from where I was pursuing my Journey from.
After talking to several lifelong Athlete friends as well as physiologists and health professionals I’ve know for decades, I’ve come to an earth shattering conclusion I had considered before; but that I hated the thought of. It was really too scary to think about; but it is inescapable, and it is this:
After miserably and inexorably falling out of Triathlon shape for 12 years (June 30th 2002- July 19 2014 start of Journey), I’m totally detrained and detuned. I may as well be starting from zero, and in fact, I am, no two ways about it.
Consider these 2 images. The left is me running my 17:12 PR at the Brentwood 5K on May 29, 1988 (35 years old). The left is me again at the 5K distance on February 12, 2017 (65 years old), Valentine’s day. These are just 3 months shy of 30 years apart, and just the visual difference is stunning!
Not only have I obviously lost sizable muscle mass in the legs; but I’ve likely lost it at scale body wide. At 170 pounds then, and 185 now, it is also obvious gobs of fat have traded places with muscle.
To complete this ‘fall from grace’, I’ve entirely forgotten how to run efficiently. In 1988 I was running; in 2017, I’m shuffling!
What my Journey up to now has done for me, is to show that my body and mind have the ability to adapt and progress with training; but no more than that.
Probably my greatest advantage is that my body and mind have been there before and I know what has to be done and how.
What I didn’t realize (or maybe didn’t want to acknowledge), is the level at which I can reenter the world of training. I approached my Journey with the same Alpha mindset of training I used to relish in the 1980s; it no longer is that way and NEVER WILL BE again.
It is not that I can’t train like I used to and adapt, I just can’t do it as fast, and I need bucket loads more recuperation time, and be ever vigilant to remain healthy and injury-free.
This is evident by all the injuries I’ve suffered since that 1st measly mile I ran on July 19 2014, the first day of my Journey back in SoCal. I have to progress slower, I need more recuperation, I need more time to adapt for the tissues to handle the stress put on them. I just can’t do it the same way, I have to be extremely careful in how I design my training, recovery, and always be on the lookout for potential injuries.
NO WONDER I’VE KEPT GETTING INJURED RUNNING SINCE THE START OF MY JOURNEY!
Having written the above and experienced the epiphanies above, I would have thought that I had my future progress figured out in 2019, and that injuries would be a thing of the past. However well intentioned I was at the beginning of 2019, the year would take an evolution all its own and cause me to arrive at a sobering conclusion by December!
In January, I had met someone who walks 15Miles per day and is a fixture around the neighborhood. This chance meeting would be central to igniting my epiphany in November/December.
In May I rode my famous 90 Mile Decker ride, but later that month I managed to wrap the rear derailleur around the rear wheel spokes, and squeeze it through the rear stay. The frame was toast and in need of major repair!
Seven weeks later, June 23rd, my Fuji came back all fixed, but just like last year’s RailRoad crash and the subsequent interruption, I had lost my biking focus and had moved on to running in view of several races I had taken note of.
It was back to running, and on July 4th, I ran the Pacific Palisades 5k to a successful finish. Later in August, I ran a 7:45Mile which I hadn’t done for a decade or more. I was looking for a Mile race to prove myself. I found it! The Ghoul Mile, just before Halloween on October 29.
At the beginning of October, in view of running a fast Mile in the upcoming race, I contacted a friend of mine who is a running coach, and had once been an Olympian in another lifetime. After videotaping my running form, we determined a few stride alterations that hopefully would benefit my mechanics. I promptly adopted these, BIG MISTAKE!
On October 19th, just a week after my form tweaks, and 10 days before the race, I blew out my left Hamstring and Gluteus. In addition, I managed to injure something deep within the hip socket by the acetabulum. Once again, I was a wreck, and I did it all running.
I still raced on Halloween; but it hurt something fierce, and I had to keep the speed down to a manageable level of pain, and to preclude further injury. I made a few efforts to save the conditioning I had in the following days post race; but I finally experienced the straw that broke the camel’s back!
On November 7th, in the middle of a measly 3Mile run, I just quit (just as abruptly as Forrest Gump in the desert), because I was so tired of hurting all the time!
I had had it with running injured. If I couldn’t run pain-free, I would just not run anymore, simple as that!
I was going to take time to mend my current injuries, and then start walking until I was pain-free. After all, I reasoned that if I couldn’t even walk pain-free, I sure couldn’t run pain-free! I would do this no matter how long it took.
I didn’t Swim/Bike, or Run for the next 22 days. On the 29th, the day after Thanksgiving, I WALKED! I had been beaten into submission, I had swallowed my pride, my body had won, and it wanted my Ego and brain to listen! It was a rude awakening when mere walking caused pain initially!
I walked all through December. In fact, I enjoyed it tremendously and it was quite challenging. I walked so well that by the 24th, the day before Christmas, I walked a brisk 4Miles in 59:30 minutes, just a tad over 4mph, all without any hint of pain:)
My first Walk/Run was January 4th, 2020. I’m getting ahead of myself; but it’s entirely pertinent to setting up my mind shift in 2020! I’ll just leave it here that I ended 2019 firmly convinced I should have zero expectations for the 1st year of the upcoming decade!
2020
Armed with my newfound respect for training as a result of 2019, I came away with a different appreciation of how my body progresses to new levels of increasing physical ability. In order for this to happen, I had to face some truths that my ego had for so long suppressed. The most critical of these was that you need to:
In order to remain injury-free, I had to ALLOW my body to get in shape, and not MAKE my body get in shape as I had always done! In a nutshell, this means letting my body do the talking, not my ego!
This strategy has worked as I have remained injury-free for the past 6months of running and biking. This is by far a longer time frame w/o injury than at any other time since the start of my Journey.
January was characterized by WalkRunning, meaning that I would walk a 1/2Mile warm up, then run 2-3Miles taking walking breaks along the way to break up the pounding.
February was entirely miserable and incapacitating with a lingering bout of intestinal flu that significantly curtailed training. By the time this bug had done its damage, I had lost 10 pounds, all flushed down the toilet! I had so little energy all month long that I was really happy to walk most of my mileage.
While my gut was injured, I had no running injuries, and that was a good thing:)
Though I was not fully cured and experiencing episodes throughout the following month, March saw my energy progressively return. I was extremely tuned to the appreciation learned in January and ever so cautious at each training session. I religiously performed my warm ups and warm downs, and I was running more and taking less walking breaks during run sessions.
Of course, Covid19 came upon the scene at this time! Fortunately, as I work remotely, the pandemic did not radically impact my everyday life. The pool where I swam closed of course; but the Biking and Running remained unchanged. If anything, the Biking was less stressful as traffic was non-existent for months.
April was more of the same as March, just with a bit more distance for both Biking and running, and starting to actually introduce some structured training in view of developing a bit of endurance and speed.
IN may, I could now run my sessions continuously, sandwiched by the ever present warm up and warm down. I now incorporated distance, Interval, and Tempo specific sessions in training, and progress showed. This new way of training was extremely beneficial in that running induced injuries remained non-existent for the rest of the year!
And this brings me to another truth, one which I was always fond of repeating to my clients; but that I took much too lightly as concerns myself.
In fact, as I get older, this is even more crucial to Longevity and Quality of Life. In fact, it is THE concept I want to pass onto you, and what Go30 is all about, and it is this
Yes, one of the pillars of ‘Longevity and Quality of Life’ is that it is crucial that those who seek this ‘Holy Grail’, absolutely must understand how their bodies work. It is crucial to cultivate a relationship with your body and what makes it tick. Hopefully, you have cultivated this awareness earlier in life.
This concept was violently revisited upon me as I passed into my 6th decade. If you decide to follow Go30, expect to hear extensively about this very subject, as I am living it!
June through September were horrible months as there were multiple successive heat waves lasting weeks. Temperatures of 100F, 110F, and even the record breaking 121F on September 6th right here in Woodland Hills, my training grounds. All training obligatorily had to happen 1st thing in the morning, and even at 6am I would routinely encounter 80F+ temperatures.
And this is another aspect of aging, thermal regulation is now a major concern. My body just can’t dissipate heat as it did even just a decade ago.
But all this Covid19, unbearable heat, and lessons learned earlier in the year, contributed to an awareness that bore fruit in that I remained injury-free all through the end of 2020!
I trained all these months, steadily increasing duration, distance, and intensity in both biking and running. October was the last month I was able to train with any regularity, as once again we moved and it was a repeat of the nightmare move just 2 years prior.
November and December were devoid of any training, save the last two weeks of the year. The few sessions I squeezed into the remainder of 2020 hardly could be considered structured training; they were more of a reintroduction to physical movement after this long layoff.
But, we had a great house, and with a fantastic location close to the mountains for biking and running, so that was a win-win:)
2021
January started off with the vigor and motivation of a brand new year! In short order, I injured the right lateral gastroc. It took me all of 16 days to accomplish this! Why?. Because I started too aggressively after not training for 2 months!
As I look back, this run was only the 4th of the new year, and I had not run in 5 days since my last run on Sundae January 10th. This is just not adequate volume or frequency to stay injury-free! I should have paid more attention to November and December of 2020 and realized how detuned I was.
This reflection led me to start suspecting several issues with training, specifically with frequency and overall volume as mentioned above. As a function of adaptation, I was failing in training! Fortunately, while pondering this dilemma, I just switched to cycling; that being the beauty of cross training and Triathlons.
As I switched over to solely biking, I was able to continue a successful forward training progression in this 1st month of 2021. I was very happy with this turn of events:)
All through what remained of January and the entire month of February, I was making excellent gains in my biking ability so that by the end of the 2nd week of March, I had recorded an 87Miles tally for that 7day period. I loved that feeling of strength, the exhilaration of acceleration on the flats, and sustaining speeds over 40 mile distances.
It also dawned on me that the progress I was making in biking was in large part due to the fact that I was ONLY biking, and not bothered with the requirements of running, which takes time, energy, and recovery. What a novel thought!
On March 16, I was ready to start running. To be specific, I was walk/running most of the sessions that followed that week. Walk/Running is my distinction to mean that these sessions of [WRunning] were mostly Walking, interspersed with small running segments at a very slow pace. I was all fixed, nothing hurt, and I certainly did not want another injury!
Through March, I biked and WRan. As I did this, my bike gains rather leveled off, maybe even deteriorated a bit as I found I needed more time to recuperate between Bike and Wrun. Juggling both sports was an issue as I could not maintain the volume I had recently attained just weeks before in cycling!
How could I fix this? I need volume in order to make gains; but the dual activities preclude efficient recuperation! The pounding of Wrunning, in my case, always requires a longer recuperation time than biking! This is a critical aspect of my particular training to fix.
I figured it out for me, and you can read about it in detail here. Suffice it to say that I have been able to resume gains in both Biking and Wrunning, all while being able to recuperate fully! In essence, I Wrun one week, followed by Cycling the next. This works admirably for my constitution at this time of my life, and my recuperative abilities at 69 years of age! Problem solved!
So in fact, May started this alternating training schedule, and it has yielded fantastic results. Weekly volume has increased, but also other parameters such as Duration and Intensity have benefitted as well.
This is the format that has taken my training to the next level over the months of June and July. Therefore, it was critical for me to figure this enigma. It was by asking questions of myself, understanding my body, and reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box; that delivered the answer to this enigma:)
So the next 3months through end of August had me training alternate weeks dedicated to Cycling or Running. I was attaining my goals, even exceeding them; but I felt the lack of variety in this program as 7days of 1 activity was draining, physically but also mentally. I missed the breaks provided by rotating sports, as well as muscle use.
How could I infuse Cycling and Running in a 7day period with enough volume? Simple, do some bricks! Just like in a Triathlon, Bike first, then go on a Run. That training is known in the lingo as ‘Brick training’. I could get all my training done in 1 shot. It was very quick, effective, and saved a lot of time.
I liked it so much that in September I trained Bricks 5days in a row and found I could recuperate from day to day. From then on, Bricks were a regular staple of my weekly training, all the way to December. Because I own December (my BirthDay), along with Christmas and all the merriment, I trained much less than the preceding months of 2021.
I was due for a well deserved break anyways:)
2022- (I’m going to be 70 years old, how exciting:))
2022 started the way all New Years start: with the conviction that I would have more success in training, (and in all life pursuits), than I had the previous year.
Carrying over from 2021, the cycling and running were quite consistent. However, I had not swum in 2+years now as the pool I trained in had been closed thanks to aggressive covid lockdowns.
As I was turning 70 this year and Sarcopenia (progressive muscle loss with age) had always been lurking in my thoughts, this BirthDay brought the thought to the forefront of my awareness! Since swimming was the only of the 3 sports that worked the musculature of the Upper Body, and I had not swum in 2+years, I really now needed to find a replacement. Why would I not return to swimming now that covid shutdowns were over and pools were open you might ask? The answer is simple:
Over time, I found that I didn’t miss swimming that much! I was highly relieved not to spend 30-40 minutes battling traffic on the 101 at 6am, and especially happy to be rid of the 2hours wasted in driving, parking, then changing in a locker room of questionable sanitary repute! This followed by showering after my swim to get the massive amounts of stinking chlorine washed off, chemicals that are necessary in 100s of gallons in such a HUGE public pool that measures 50meters long by 25meters wide!
In the end, as this Olympic pool was highly esteemed by swim teams of all ages, water aerobics classes, synchronized swim teams, as well as Mom/Baby swim lessons, I just couldn’t return to swimming in a public toilet! Numerous were the instances I showed up at the pool only to be told the pool was closed due to a baby having an ‘accident’ and the bacterial count was too high! No, I was done with that crap (pun intended)! I won’t even mention my hair turning green!
So how was I now supposed to train my Upper Body? How was I supposed to replace the only activity that provided my torso with muscular resistance, joint movement patterns, and flexibility?
In order to somewhat duplicate the benefits of swimming, I decided to order a Power cage from Amazon around which I’d assemble a home gym. I ordered it with all the peripherals I would find in a commercial gym, meaning cable, pull up, dip, bent over row, and lat pull down attachments.
I received it on January 10th, and 1 week later I started training on it. It was good to finally put a load on all the UpperBody musculature I had been ignoring since the lockdowns of 2021. I was integrating weight lifting sessions successfully with biking and running, until life got in the way once again, and in a BIG way!
Sunday February 20th, my 93 year old Mother, hobbled to my room complaining of intense abdominal pains. Long story short, I called 911 and she ended up at Kaiser Permanente hospital. She was diagnosed with an intestinal perforation, and there was talk of explorative surgery, hospice, etc!
It was a very long day for both of us. Fortunately, she was released at 6pm as she seemed to have stabilized. I didn’t get to bed until 11pm that night, after not eating anything all day. It had been a very long day for both of us:(
Needless to say, I was a wreck in the following weeks, and training suffered greatly. Mom had good and bad days, and due to the fact I didn’t want to stray far from home, or for long periods, training became almost non existent. March, April, May could best be described as haphazard and spotty!
In June however, and as Mom improved, I managed to recover more motivation and started running. Driving this motivation was the prospect of running the July 4th Pacific Palisades 5k. Being a Veteran, I have a complimentary entry, so I run this race yearly. However, once again, trying to urge my body to get in shape, I managed to develop an irritation in the right gastroc which curtailed my efforts! I was getting ready to break one of my cardinal rules: ‘Don’t run injured’!
The race, which has a steep downhill the 1st Mile, ended up blowing an irritation into a massive injury which ended up involving both calves as I compensated my normal gait! The pain was so intense that I feared doing major damage. It got to the point that I wasn’t sure I could finish the race running, or would actually hobble in, or worse?
I didn’t run for the next 3 months! Once again, this injury was self inflicted. Licking my wounds and moping for the rest of July, I turned again to cycling in August. I figured I should turn this running fiasco into an opportunity to put muscle mass and strength into my legs.
It turned out wonderfully and I did in fact put on muscle as I was riding 50-100mpw. Towards the end of October, I Wran timidly a few times, and by November I was running about 10mpw.
So, entering December, I’m now in the enviable position of being injury free once again to pursue Biking, Running, and Weight lifting, the latter which I’ve learned to embrace. I say embrace, because having been a CardioVascular athlete all my life and being outdoors covering 100s of miles in training, it was difficult for me to lift weights in the static environment of my nicely appointed home gym. The prospect of turning 70 however, cured me of my reticence to adopt weights!
So here I am on my 70th BirthDay, December 28, 2022, which also is the BirthDay of this site live on the internet. From this day forth, you’ll be able to follow my daily trainings on Go30, if you think you can glean some benefit from it!