Monday, March 5, 2012

Sometimes, I feel like I'm too old to play this hard

Squat PR on Tuesday plus the rest of the CF workout

Deadlift PR on Wednesday plus the rest of the Cf workout

Rest on Thursday (swamped at work)

Rest on Friday (need to be ready for the weekend)

Saturday - skied in steep trees all morning. Then, as the temperature rose and some of the snow started to get dense, we moved to trails for safety reasons. But, we moved to steep, double-black diamond trails. By 2:30, the girls in my group were exhausted. I could see it everywhere - some people drop their hands, some drop their butts, skiing in the "back seat", and my best skier simply stopped moving below the waist, trying to just glide down hill while exerting as little effort as possible. We dialed it back to end the day. My left knee (ACL replacement a decade ago and some meniscus damage) was barking a bit by the end of the day. My right shoulder is still sore.

I had a class after skiing on Saturday and got home later than usual. I cooked dinner, watched some TV and went to bed early. I knew Sunday would be a challenging day.

Overnight, the temperatures dropped and what was fun on Saturday was ice on Sunday. We tried one very moderate tree run - a mountain biking path. Speed control was nearly impossible. My buddy Jay, a level 3 certified instructor told me later that he'd tried the same run and had to use a wedge to control his speed. So, we mostly stuck to steep groomers, including Ripcord, a double-black that had been groomed. Twice, we ventured onto non-groomed mogul runs and nearly had our teeth shaken out of our heads. Actually, one of the un-groomed runs wasn't too bad on the upper half of the run, but the bottom was a challenge.

Due to the challenging conditions, a lot of people left the mountain early. On Saturday, I'd skied most of the day with all nine of my students. By the end of the day on Sunday, only two remained, and one of them was my daughter, who didn't really have much of a choice.

All in all, it was a fun but tough and challenging weekend. As soon as we were done skiing, I changed clothes and headed home. I got home, showered, changed into PJs, and just laid on the couch watching TV for a couple hours. I managed to rally a bit to cook dinner and that was about it before bed.

Today, my right shoulder still hurts. My left knee aches a bit. I'm tired. It's definitely a rest day and I hope to be back at CF tomorrow. But, the last two weeks, I've only done two CrossFit workouts during the work week rather than three, and I've still found myself tired after the weekend.

I have three weekends of ski instruction left, and I'm thinking of modifying my mid-week training for the next three weeks. I am thinking of doing CrossFit only on Tuesday and Thursday, and maybe doing some easier aerobic work on Wednesdays.

It's OK to have a bad day in the gym where you are a student in the class. But, when you are the instructor, as I am on the weekends, you really need to be at the top of your game.

This winter, I've had my most advanced and aggressive ski group ever. And I've tried to train hard during the week while skiing hard during the weekends. Perhaps it's catching up to me. Or, I might just have to acknowledge that age 50 is a lot different than 30, from a physical perspective.

All of what I do remains fun. But, my body is simply asking me to do less sometimes.

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