Overdoing it

Thank you for sharing all this. This was very encouraging. I feel a lot like you in many ways - i think i am ageing faster than some others. I am over my cold and i am going to hit it hard again this week - but also i am going to try and do a better job of listening to what my body is telling me and adjust accordingly as needed. j

Thank you for taking the time to offer these thought. When i discussed intensity - i would generally be swimming much faster - but utilizing an interval that would give me more rest - say if i normally did 100's on two minutes and perhaps averaged 1:40-1:45 - i would do them on maybe 2 and a half minutes - but get the times down in the 1:30 range - more race pace type of swims. that is how i have typically prepared for a big meet - and i would mix all this up during the week - 50's, 100's, 200's - generally with more rest between the swims - but the swims were faster. As i would get closer to zones - i would often start swimming events i was targeting with "broken swims" - taking a break at the 50 for a 100 - or taking a break at the 100 for a 200. The breaks/rest get longer as I approached zones. I usually had a distance day once a week thrown in to give my body a break from this - and i generally never swim on weekends - so i get some rest there as well. This all seems pretty logical and without significant issues - increasing intensity while dropping volume is what tapering is about and the resulting greater amounts of rest should produce the gains if you have a good base to taper from. Why then the exhaustion? If the exhaustion returns when you start back up, consider seeing a medical doctor and reviewing what you are doing and how you are feeling. There may be some tests (blood, cardio, etc.) that would be worthwhile and provide some answers.

J, there are two things I have had a difficult time accepting; however, I'm getting better at it: 1. We all age at different rates. I have been dealing with the same issues as you this year, and I am 56. I have definitely aged more this year than in past years- or, at least it seems that way. It's easy to compare yourself to others in the same age group; however, if you are like me, you have been comparing yourself to BETTER swimmers in your age group who seem to keep getting personal best times at every meet. J, they are NOT the norm. They're just awesome freaks of nature! Take a look at Laura Val, for example. Go ahead and look her up if you don't recognize her name. Swimmers who compare themselves to her will only get depressed! If you are going to compare your 58 year old self to others your age, compare yourself to everybody! Look around, and you will realize your doing pretty darn well. Hey, for that matter, look up your event rankings (I looked up your 2016 ranking for 200 free, for example), and you will see there are plenty of people swimming a lot slower than you are, including one of my very own teammates who looks extremely fit; however, he is ranked near the bottom. There are probably plenty of those slower swimmers who are in worse shape than you and get even more exhausted. Just sayin'. There are probably also others that experienced what you have at 48 or 38 years old. Your body at 58 is telling you to lighten up your work load and back off. Listen to what it's telling you, and it will respond in kind. That brings me to #2: 2. As you age, you will need to adjust your workouts accordingly, so you don't exhaust yourself. As the others have already said, your body needs more time to recover. Whaaaa! I hated accepting this! I LOVE to be in the pool, and if my body would let me, I would train seven days per week. As it is, I swim six days; HOWEVER, I have really had to cut back on my yardage and intensity over the past few years--- especially this year. I refuse to cut back to less than six days; however, I am allowing myself play days, which include loafing around and even chatting with the noodlers (gasp!). What Quicksilver suggested in post #5 WORKS! I am inserting those easy days into my workouts now, whereas I used to go at it hard all six days each week. Yesterday, I took it easy. I did just drills and technique work for 1500 yards, and none of it was on the clock. I also chucked the dryland routine except for some light stretching and foam rolling. Today, as a result, I had an awesome workout and took 1 second off all my breaststroke 50's (at 200 pace). :banana: In addition, I swam a fly set and strung together tough IM sets I would have never been able to do otherwise. My dryland went a lot better, too, and I had a ton of energy throughout my entire workout. Try it for yourself, and you will see it works! Most of all, don't be hard on yourself, ok? :bighug: This is true. My problem was I also took off several years and the 2nd period I did some intense swimming for three years I quit again in my late 40's and didn't start working out again until 59. I can't do much workouts compared to many master swimmers my age. Instead of looking at the qualifying times for masters swimmers. I looked at the standard times for national senior Olympics which I much closer to than masters nationals. For example, I'm almost 13 seconds off of master nationals in the 100 yard breaststroke which is 1:37.7 while I did 1:50.3. The second time in National Senior Olympics is a 1:45.7. So, I less than 5 seconds off. There are other ways to measure how good you are. Also, I have gotten my self real tired by swimming 100 yard breastsroke or I'm in workouts around 2.01 to 2:03 in workouts. I think this helped me in the 100 yard breaststroke and 200 yard I'm to swim closed to race pace but as everyone states you need to have some days of easy swim to recover or changed yardage one week do more yardage at moderate pace and another week do less yardage with more race pace training.