Hypoxic Day 3

As usual, my alarm clock went off at 6 in the morning. I dragged myself out of bed, brushed my teeth, changed my clothes, ate a banana and mixed my post-swim recovery drink. By 6:40 I was on the train to my gym.

However something was different today.

I got off the gym stop at the usual time (around 7) but I noticed that it was brighter than it has always been. It occurred to me that nearly a month has passed since the winter solstice but I had never thought of how the different sunrise times would affect my perception of morning workouts.

No longer was I trudging to the gym in the darkness of the pre-dawn hours. The sky was a bit brighter, there was more activity (or was that a figment of my imagination?) and I could nearly smell spring on the horizon. Obviously, I look forward to warmer weather, but there’s something to be said about the sense of accomplishment you feel after a workout done when half the time-zone is in slumber.

In training news, I did accomplish what I set out for today’s swim goal- 4x400 with flip turns. To think that just 2 days ago I was struggling to do flip turns on 100s, I couldn’t be more delighted. Sometimes I’m blown away at what our bodies are capable of, especially in terms of adaptive muscle memory.

This reminds me of the snowboarding phenomenon. I remember when I first tried to snowboard, my first day couldn’t have been worse. I couldn’t go for more than 10 yards without falling flat on my butt. By the end of the day I was bruised all over and ready to give up. Unfortunately (or fortunately, in the long run) I was on a planned 2 day ski trip and was forced to snowboard again the next day. However, when I got on my board the second day, everything came so much easier. It was magical. I didn’t really understand what happened then but it seemed that overnight my muscles had somehow imprinted all the kinesthetic subtleties that I’ve acquired during the day’s attempt at snowboarding- from heel-toe balance, to lean degrees, to foot stance, etc…into my body in preparation for a repeat of such an activity.

With that in mind, I decided to test the body’s ability to memorize and optimize certain actions again, this time with flip turns. I made it a point to swim with flip turns consistently and in greater degrees of strain over the past few days… and the results were mind blowing. This machine which we call our body is one hell of a piece of art. It nearly makes one believe in intelligent design- but that’s a whole different can of worms.