Week of firsts

First week of January. First snowfall of '08. First shellacking for yet another Leaf goalie (like this is new). First visit with the cousins in London. You get the idea. The turn of the year is the time of rebirth, of restarting, of revisiting and recommitting. It's time to add some structure and planning to the workouts, while not becoming so regimented at this early time that the brain rebels at the end of June, taking no prisoners but hijacking tubs of Haagen-Dazs, or cases of Steam Whistle.


Yep, the off-season is over. No more sleeping through the 5:30 a.m. alarm. Gotta hit the pool again. Gotta roll again. Off-season is one thing. It's understood and in fact recommended to "walk away" from the structure of the plan, in order to return with fresh mind and attitude. Having said that there can be too much downtime. Taking three months off in any sport is a recipe for disaster. It's possible to completely degrade the aerobic base to the point where form is lost, replaced by expending all energy just trying to keep afloat and hopefully moving forward. From all this, you can probably hazard a guess as to how my first swim went this week. Just have to keep going back to the Hackett video - stretch out, reach long, stretch out, reach long, repeat...


On the positive (?!?) my first ride in a few months went very much the same earlier this week as well. This is positive, you ask? Well, encouragingly, the next two have gone much more smoothly. I guess it's true what they say about riding a bike. Hopefully that info applies to swimming as well. Hope so - after all, the Alton Half is a scant 3 weeks away...


Here's an interesting bit of reading ("Weighty trends", Jan 02/08), found in my surfings this week. Has to do with the unrelenting, unavoidable advance of technology into our sport and whether progress is actually improvement. Certainly something to chew on. On the one hand, it's a vote in favour of the old school, carbon-and-ceramic-free approach to the bike. On the other hand, it's unlikely to stop me from lusting after a new P2C or TTX.



Peace.