I clearly wasn’t the only one wanting for some playing time. We could have run two games side by side with subs and not noticed a difference. This is a coed league, which by its nature limits the number of teams that can play due to the lack of women players at the league level. A league for all men would be a smart drain on the overfull rosters, but some weird dynamic is keeping any kind of league level (as opposed to club or college level) single gender apparatus from forming. It’s almost enough to make me go back to soccer, where I actually have some skill, though the sport in general turns me into a lunatic with blood lust and murder in my heart. At least soccer has an extensive divisional structure even at the amateur level, and at my level of fitness other players would laugh off rather than worry about my hot head.

I guess the larger problem is that my failures at even weekend warrior bullshit are starting to seriously fucking get to me. I guess I expected that applying even a small amount of will would get me to the other side of years of idleness, that I’d be able to trade my body in for some high school + epsilon version of myself. I’ve realized recently that in terms of the kind of culture I consume on a regular basis, I’ve turned towards “geek” and “gaming” where in H.S. I was, for all my apparent socialization problems still some kind of “jock” or more modestly an “athlete.” I was never very good, but that wasn’t the point.

Oh my god how much I wish I could switch back. Give me some small window into which I might project some form to the physical id and have the physiology actually work to my benefit, the mechanics of moving turning into things like “incremental improvement” and “skill acquisition.” I mean, at this point I might as well start throwing fucking darts.

1. Weight-corrected race: divide the race time by each finisher’s BMI.
2. To the flag and back: instead of charting a course simply select a destination that contestants must run to and back.
3. Peak efficiency: instead of time, use total calories burned between the start and finish. (I’m not even sure this kind of race is possible.)

Inspired by a Metafilter post on exercise, I decided to try a Tabata style workout. I didn’t want to be the one guy on the cardio machines doing ellipticals like a madman, so I opted instead for interval training in the pool instead of my normal swim.

OMG!

It’s been a couple of days now, and I think I’ve recovered. I also realize what my current workout routines are missing. I try to spend a good deal of my free time focusing on fitness, but unlike when I actually was fit, I don’t spend a lot of time in the upper regions of my cardio capacity. I’m not exactly a slouch. I aim to get to about 80% for a sustained workout, but I don’t ususally get into the 80%+ range (really more like 95%+) that a high intensity short duration workout demands.

This is one area where playing an organized sport can really make a difference. The psychology of operating in those extreme limits of fitness change quite a bit when your objectives are concrete and competitive as opposed to long term and abstract. That said, I’m going to try to do my best to do more interval training as part of my normal routine.

Aside: When I was fit, I always thought of myself more as a sprinter, so interval training was sort of the “easy” part and the longer distances were the challenge. I think this is why I have a bit of a blind spot regarding this kind of training. When I think of getting fit I think about my historical weak spots, not the more obvious, plentiful, and present deficiencies in my fitness level. So I think about endurance instead of maximum output as a guiding principle for my workouts.

Then I went to City Sports and put down $130 on gear. Just running shorts, shoes (last year’s models are perfectly decent and are always half price – one of those peculiar rules of the universe cooked up by retail group think, uncertainty, and the usual customer segmentation) and one of those fancy fabric shirts (whose marketers are universally in love with the word wick).

And you know what? The gear makes a difference, especially when starting out. Far less chafing and joint pain, far more of that (still painful but in a good way) muscle burn. I was able to run farther (further? Ah! I forget the rule.) with less motivation. Even if that’s the result of some sort of confirmation bias at having spent so much money, it still turned into a good deal. Somewhere around my second year in college, fitness started becoming something of an issue for me. Hopefully, after several years of trying to reverse the trend, I’ll be able to get back on track.