Rest is not a waste of time

This week was crazy busy, as they usually are when I am leaving town. There was not a moment to spare, or waste. Tying up loose ends in a medical practice is the medical equivalent to herding cats. How I wished for a little extra “down” time. I remember those days when I was a boy and a nap was something I was forced to do, almost invariably against my wishes. In first grade, for example, after lunch we would return to our classroom and were made to put our heads down on our desks for a prescribed period of time. Some of us would put a jacket over our heads, supposedly to block out light but in reality to provide cover for various nefarious activities, anything other than napping- this only worked on those rare days in the winter in Miami when it was cold enough to justify a sweater or jacket.




I tried to find clever ways to entertain myself under the cover of the jacket. Sometimes I would bring something back from lunch, such as bag of chips, and endeavor to eat it quietly, in the dark, under the jacket. One day as I was thus engaged, feeling pretty smug and smart, the teacher lifted up the jacket and I found myself looking up at her unamused face, my own awash in a sea of crumbs.



Naps seemed such a waste of valuable time when we could have been doing something….anything else.



I used to hate to sleep when I was younger. It seemed a waste of time that could be put to better use. This is probably where I developed the habit of staying up late and getting up early. It stood me in good stead during medical school, my training in surgery, and in private practice, juggling the responsibilities of patients, family, and all the other things demanding my time and attention. It did, however, lead feeling constantly tired. This was not the fatigue of an occasional lack of enough sleep, but the overarching, all consuming fatigue of never getting enough sleep. I remember times in my residency when I literally dreamed of the day I would be able to get all the sleep I wanted….and needed. At times, I found myself falling asleep even while standing up making ward rounds on patients.



It took a few decades but I finally began to appreciate the value of rest. We know that in athletic training, rest days are as important as any training days, allowing the body to recover and consolidate the gains made during training. Sleep allows us to assimilate and store information that we have gained over the course of a day. Rest is truly not a waste of time but an important, indeed crucial, component of training. Without it, we are more prone to break down, get hurt, or get sick.



At 60 I find that one of life’s true little pleasures is the occasional nap, usually on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Rather than begrudge this episode of “the little death” as some have called sleep, I look forward to it as a hard earned privilege. It is interesting to note, for those in the Judeo-Christian tradition, that even Jesus, who was understandably preoccupied with preaching, healing the sick, raising the dead, fighting the devil, and otherwise saving the human race, took time away from the job to recharge. If it was good enough for Him, it is surely good enough for me!



Florida Ironman Training Log:

Despite the busy, foreshortened week, I managed to check off every training assignment except Saturday’s bike ride. The trip to VA to see Lindsey, David, and Emerson prevented me from doing the long bike ride but I did do a short run instead. The point of interest in the week was on Thursday, when I had to do an intense session on the bike on the trainer to help establish my lactate threshold- the effort which, if I exceed it in a long race, I will blow up and likely not finish. Looks like my threshold heart rate is around 141.



Week’s Training Summary:

Mon. 2/18- Swim, 1925 yards, did mostly drills, working on form

Bike, interval work on trainer, total time 29:59

Tue. 2/19- Rest day, stretched

Wed. 2/19- Run, interval run, 4.28 mi @ 8:42 min/mi, total time 37:17

Thu. 2/20- Bike, Lactate Threshold ride on trainer

Fri. 2/21- Run, 6.01 mi @ 8:27 min/mi pace, total time 50:27

Sat. 2/22- Rest day, stretched

Sun. 2/23- Run, 3.17 mi @ 9:32 min/mi pace, total time 30:21

I don't have time for this!

You will notice that today’s blog post is nearly a week late. It was that sort of week. Too many things to do and not enough time to do them. Time. I have touched on this in the recent past but it is a constant presence in our everyday lives. It is arguably our most precious commodity. No, that’s not right; it is inarguably our most precious commodity. All of our desire, efforts, education, and wealth cannot add a single second to each 24 hour day. Deserving or undeserving, it doesn’t matter.




Speaking personally, I know young people have a different perspective on time than older persons. When I was young, I gave little thought to the passage of time, other than to fervently desire to be older, so that I could assume all those rights that went with this: driving, dating, voting, earning my own living, and making decisions for myself. I gave no thought to growing old as such, except as it would add to the things I was permitted to do.



Now, at 60, I view each day as a precious gift, one not to be squandered in mindless activities that serve no purpose. Among those purposes are nurturing connections with friends and family far and near; engaging in activities for the purpose of maintaining or, better yet, improving my health and fitness; striving to improve my care of my patients; furthering my relationship with the God I profess to believe in; and trying to never reach the end of a day without learning something new.



I figure that a good goal is to leave the world a better place for your having lived and to leave people who feel they are better for having known you. In those two regards, my father was a true success.



In day to day practice, there just never seems to be enough time to do all the things you need to do, much less the things you want to do. Trying to add a training plan for an ironman triathlon into an already busy schedule sounds a little crazy…. no, really crazy. What was I thinking? So far, I have been able to keep up with the proposed training schedule but it has been a challenge and I foresee that it will only get harder as the training ramps up. It is true, though, that we make the time for the things that are important to us. The reality is that the daily parade of things that demand my time simply won’t stop and some of those must take priority over training, as much as I wish otherwise. There are patients to care for, family and friends who deserve some of my time, and myriad of things that come along each day demanding my attention, and time. The best I can do is to do what I can, when I can, and hope that will be enough. Isn’t that the best that any of us can do?



Florida Ironman Training Log:

The weather turning cold and rainy this week and having my partner gone for the week made for a long, tiring week. I missed my first training session, in the pool on Thursday because the day began so early and the weather in the evening was awful and I was just tired. So much for a perfect month. My session at the NTC with Karl showed me just how inflexible I am. I suspect it is not going to be easy to overcome nearly 60 years of not doing any stretching but I suppose it can’t hurt to try.



Week’s training summary:

Mon, 2/11- Swim drills, 1375 yds, total time 38:01

Bike (trainer), total time 30:34

Tues, 2/12- rest, stretching

Wed, 2/13- Run intervals, 6 X 1min at 8:15 min/mi pace, total 3.79 mi, time 32:54

Thu, 2/14- None, early AM meeting and in the PM was cold, rainy and I was too tired!

Fri, 2/15- Run, 8 mi at 8:49 min/mi pace, Total time 1:10:20

Sat, 2/16- Bike, 45.05 mi at 14.1 mph ave, total time 3:11:42

The Tortoise and the Hare

Fast twitch, slow twitch. Most athletes know what those terms mean. Our striated muscles, those under our voluntary control, are not uniform. They consist of two types of muscle fibers. As the name implies, fast twitch muscle fibers contract rapidly while slow twitch contract slowly. Fast twitch are associated with athletes in sports that require explosive effort and speed, like sprinters. Slow twitch are seen more long distance and endurance athletes.




I’m definitely a slow twitch type. I can go for long periods but I don’t go fast. Pretty much in everything I do, I am “the caboose”. I try to soothe my battered ego by imagining that I am burning just as many calories and getting the same training effect as those going faster than me. Unfortunately, that’s not true, as even a brief moments reflection will make clear. The fact is that burning calories is more than a matter of time doing something. You can burn calories sitting on a sofa watching TV. Other factors, like type of activity, effort, and your weight come into play. Running, for example burns approximately 4 times as many calories as walking. Running fast burns more calories than running slow. Even so, running and walking remain two of the best forms of exercise because everyone knows how to do them, they require no special equipment beyond a good pair of shoes- even those aren’t necessarily required as you can run barefoot, and some elite runners do.



Many people feel that if they can’t be a hare, they don’t want to be a tortoise either. This is unfortunate as our obesity rates in this country attest. Everyone has to start somewhere and the main thing is to get moving. A recent Orlando Sentinel article told of Marcus McCleery who weighed nearly 400 lb. He had atrial fibrillation, a condition of the heart where the smaller chambers beat erratically and without coordination so that they don’t pump blood into the chambers, the ventricles, that pump blood out to the body. This results in such things as fatigue, lack of energy, shortness of breath with even minimal activity.



McCleery’s atrial fibrillation was fixed with a simple procedure but it is what he did next that makes the story worth telling. He resolved to move at least 15 minutes a day. From this simple step, he went on to lose nearly 200 lb, became a triathlete, and now teaches people that they can do the same. It began with those 15 minutes per day. He could have stayed on the couch after his heart was fixed and the procedure would have been a technical success and a total failure otherwise. Check his website: www.move15minutesaday.com.



Fast twitch or slow twitch. Run, walk, bike, or swim. It doesn’t matter. What matters is doing something most days of the week.



Florida Ironman Training Log:

It was a good week. I managed to complete each workout scheduled for me, and felt pretty good doing it. The Saturday bike ride was longer than expected and really wore me out. I’ll have to pay more attention to sticking with the plan.



Week’s Training Summary:

Mon, 2/4- Swim at the Y: 875 yds at 2:15/100 yds, total time 19:38

Bike on trainer 30 min w 3 X 30 sec at 95 rpm in the middle

Tues, 2/5- none

Wed, 2/6- run ~35 min with 6 X 1 min at 8:30 min/mi pace w 2 min recovery at 9 min/mi, 5 min cool down.

Thur, 2/7- Swim at the Y: 2000 yds at 2:05 min/100 yds, total time 41:28 min.

Fri, 2/8- Run 7 miles at average 8:42 min/mi.

Sat, 2/9- Bike 52.24 mi at ave 15.1 mph, total time 3:27:52

Sun, 2/10- rest day, stretched.

Old dogs and new tricks

I have always held that any day I learn something new is not a wasted day. This applies both to my professional and personal life. I have never wanted to be one of those people whose response to something new is always “well, I’ve never done it that way”. What a boring way to live. Life is such that if you aren’t moving forward, you aren’t staying in place either; you are losing ground. Dinosaurs became extinct because they were unable to adapt to changes in their environment. I don’t want to be a dinosaur.

I’ve never taken swim lessons other than as a small boy one summer in Miami. Those weren’t for the purpose of teaching us to swim competitively; they were to prevent us from drowning. Although I never did swim competitively in, or out of, school, I have spent a good part of my life in the water, snorkeling in the keys and SCUBA diving in such diverse places as the Bahamas and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. You could safely say that I am comfortable in the water.

When began to participate in triathlons, a necessary step in saving my legs from the unrelenting impact of running as my sole activity, I envisioned the swim as the most tedious of the three disciplines. It was a pleasant surprise to find the swim not only enjoyable but truly enjoyable. I felt good in the pool, comfortable in a mass of splashing people during a tri, and this soon became one of my favorite parts of the triathlon. Even so, it was discouraging to swim freestyle thinking I was moving along pretty well and smoothly, only to watch every kid, and most adults, in the pool gliding past me, seemingly with less effort. Something obviously needed to be done. Enter the National Training Center in Clermont. It would seem a no brainer that, having a premier training center for triathletes practically in one’s back yard, one would take advantage of this. It took getting serious about an ironman to make me turn to this great resource for some help.

I met Misty Becerra, one of the NTC’s aquatic specialists, last Friday for a swim stroke analysis. Not knowing what to expect, and not wanting to embarrass myself with my untutored swim form, I arrived a bit nervous for our session. An hour later, I was swimming in a way I had never imagined using changes to my swim stroke that she suggested. I would never have come up with these on my own as I thought I was doing pretty well, except for being slow. As a result, although it may be my imagination, I feel 50% faster in the water. I am using my arms and legs differently and so I tend to fatigue a little quicker but I can feel that my stroke is more efficient. Hard to believe that at 60, I am finally learning how to swim properly. My previous, "overcontrolled" piercing stroke, has been replaced by a freer, "chopping" style that is more relaxed, yet faster. It was an added bonus to watch some of the elite triathletes in the world, including Sarah McLarty, doing their pool drills right next to where I was “learning to swim”.

The videos Misty took clearly showed the changes in my stroke. Now I just have to make them instinctive and then dial the yardage back up. It was surprisingly exciting to learn something new like this. I believe that as long as we continue learning, life will remain endlessly fascinating and we will stay younger longer.

Florida Ironman Training Log:

Karl, at the NTC, gave me my first month’s training plan for February. I have never had something like this made for me. He is pushing me to start out so that any twinges or aches will come out early and can be dealt with before they become problems. Between Misty and Karl, I feel like I have a team helping me along with this little “project”.

Week’s Training Summary:

Mon 1/28- Swim 2000 yds, 2.24 min/100 yds, 47:57 total time

Tues 1/29- none

Wed 1/30- Run 6.23 mi, 8.54 min/mi, 55:56 total time

Thur 1/31- none

Fri    2/1- First NTC plan run, 6.17 mi, 8:54 min/mi, 54:59 total time

Fri    2/1- Swim stroke analysis at NTC, 1074 yds, 2.27 min/100 yds, 1:02:57 total time

Sat   2/1- Bike ride on trainer, 23.73 mi, 14.1 mph ave., 1:41:16 total time

Sun  2/2- none