Some of the regular readers have mentioned that the blog has been rather empty since last November. The last entry of note was a short description and a few photos of the 2007 Noosa Ocean 1000 Swim. Unfortunately a Plague took me offline then and I was down and out for months.
Without going into the gory details … I arrived in Australia for the Noosa races freshly infected with a nasty flu virus, didn’t realize how bad it was and swam the gruelling 1000m anyway … full tilt. Two days later I also swam the 1500m Noosa Team Triathlon race, but on an empty tank. I managed to really crash my immune system and spent the rest of the month Down Under totally down and out. I lost 10 lbs and arrived home in a condition described as anorexic.
Once back home and under the care and guidance of my Coach / Doctor Cathie Bass, it was no training for December … just eating. My GP ruled out any underlying problems and Sports Physician Dr. Matt DiStefano got me hooked up with Sports Dietitian Susie Langley. It turns out in the months leading up to my November races I was short on calories and protein. As a result, I’d burned away my body fat and compromised my immune system. Big lessons learned.
With the diet adjusted and Ensure Plus supplementation, I’d gained enough weight by January to start training again. The weeks consisted of three hard swim training session followed by weight training, three recovery swim on the alternate days, power eating and lots of sleeping. It was pretty much all consuming coming back from ‘nothing’ with about three months in which to do it.
So with a good bit of the fitness returned plus the lost 10 lbs and another 7-8 for good measure, the first test (before the April 2008 Perth World Masters Swimming Championships) was the Ontario Championships …