07/08/2004: "Getting Old and calories or no I am not saying I'm fat."

music: Crickets of the real variety
mood: default happy with a chance of cranky

As I approach 30, I find that the aches and pains increase while my level of activity has stayed roughly the same the last 10 years. The tendonitis in my shoulder aches in winter, the tendonities i nthe balls of my feet never stop hurting, I can crack every joint in my body and my knees and wrists are starting to ache from too much computer and sitting weird at work ( my trademark!) I have always had a high tolerance for pain and though I think my lack of formal exercise does contribute to the discomforts, I do walk of 10 flights of stairs a day on average and find that even walking a little bit every day gets me less and less out of breath then usual. I have never been a land mamal. Even at the height of my conditioning at my lowest weight in 7th grade I ran the mile in 7 minutes and 13 second. I remember quite clearly wanting to break 7 and I nearly passed out in the attempt. Just a year later it was 9 minutes and by junior year it was closer to 10. Swimming has always been easier on my lungs and heart than anything land related ( biking, hiking, running, walking). I can walk forever provided it's flat and not to hard. If the world were a filed of carpet I would probably never stop moving. Now the occasional burst of a hike, of the spontineity of a beach rugby game can pulse pain through every fiber in my body. But to be honest its a good type of pain. the shocking of the atrohpheed muscles that breathes life into them, that jogs their memories and reminds me that I can still get in condition if I wanted to, though never at the level I was at I wager. Too much damage done to a body young and fierce. Adrenaline alone often surprised even me with the results of mind over matter. And I have swimming to thank for also being able to know my body well enough to acknowledge the good and the bad kind of pain.....becuase I felt the water on every part of my body I was super sensitive to any changes and still am to a certain extent. So how to get into shape to be able to DO more without getting as tired or as sore and without neccessarily being consistent with the exercise as my life tends to be a bit sporadic. I have come up with a plan...a borrowed time plan....


As an athlete I calculate that from age 6-18 I swam on average of 3,000 yards a day, 7 days a week. This includes double workouts, meets and both year round and highschool season. Although in the last 5 years of my career I was swimming upwards of 10,000 yards a day with weight training and cross training as well. WE had workouts on christmas eve and new years day and pretty much the pool and swimming ( one of the safest sports and best for you if you don't count the exposure to sun) was were I spent my formative years. So with a few days break and tapers and so forth I wager 3,000 yards at 340 days a year times 12 SO figure I have swum approximately 12,240,000 year or close to 675 miles. During my swimming career I was never more than 140 pounds and so to average a conservative effort of 1,000 calories burned per workout/meet at an average weight of 125 for all 12 years....I have burned in Swimming alone ( not to mention the wieght training, bike riding to school and PE and so on) 4,080,000 calories. ( No wonder I eat constantly, I'm still making up for the deficet!!!) I figure I can just channel all that excess exorcise. I am a calorie camel and I will simple systematically mentally recall the exercise to condition myself regularly and then when I am active I won't injure myself. What do you think....is there a way....mind over matter and MASS!