When the Clock Says Go, and the Body Says Stop

On Thursday morning, I swam one of the fastest practice 100-yard freestyles I’d managed since returning to competitive swimming.

That night, pain around my left shoulder blade repeatedly woke me from sleep.

Those two facts didn’t seem as though they should be able to coexist. How could I be injured if I could swim that fast? How could I swim that fast and then voluntarily stop doing the work that had produced it?

The clock was giving me every reason to believe my training was working. My body was giving me every reason to wonder whether I could safely continue.

I wanted to believe the clock.

Simple doesn’t mean easy

I began the week feeling better than I had in several days. One week earlier, I’d finally stopped calling the problem stiffness and admitted that I was injured. Now the pain that had nearly crippled me had eased again, tempting me to question that conclusion almost as soon as I’d reached it.

That had become the frustrating pattern. The pain would intensify enough to make the injury undeniable, then recede enough to convince me that perhaps I’d overreacted.

By Monday morning, I felt capable of training normally. More than normally, actually. I wanted to increase my swimming volume.

Most of our Masters practices total roughly 3,000 yards. That’s enough for a worthwhile workout, but I’m preparing to race the 1,000 freestyle. I need enough endurance to maintain speed for 40 lengths of the pool.

The easiest way to add yardage was already available. The pool opens before official practice, giving me approximately 15 minutes to warm up independently. Arriving earlier could turn an ordinary practice into a 4,000-yard workout.

There was no complicated strategy involved. I just had to wake up earlier, leave earlier, and get into the water earlier.

Simple doesn’t always mean easy.

I woke Monday with some pain still present in my upper left back. I tested it with 25 yards of backstroke during my warmup and felt the familiar area beside my shoulder blade react. Freestyle remained comfortable, so I stayed with it.

The main set included 175s with the final 100 swum hard. Later, I turned a planned set of 75s into 100s, pulling the first five with paddles and swimming the final five. I kept every 100 under 1:05 and finished in 1:00.

I wasn’t fresh, yet I could still access speed. That’s exactly the ability I need for the 1,000.

During the set, I experienced tightness near my left armpit that felt almost like a cramp. I stretched, drank more water, and reduced the intensity of the remaining work. The sensation mostly subsided before I left.

That made it easy to treat the moment as an isolated warning. I’d completed 4,000 yards and finished with a strong time. Focusing on what had gone right was far more appealing.

What had gone wrong still bothered me. Backstroke and freestyle recruit the shoulder and upper-back muscles differently, and whatever I’d irritated objected more strongly to backstroke.

That distinction mattered. I hold Colorado Masters records in the 100 and 200 backstroke, and both events should be central to my championship season. Avoiding the stroke temporarily wouldn’t end my season, but the idea that my best stroke might be aggravating an injury was unsettling.

The evidence I wanted

I ran two miles Tuesday evening. The first came surprisingly easily at approximately 8:30. The second brought me back to reality at around 9:15.

The run still gave me useful work without forcing my shoulder blade through the motion that appeared to irritate it. My back didn’t prevent me from running, and that felt reassuring.

I returned to the pool Wednesday and arrived early enough to swim 750 yards before the team warmup. The stroke-heavy practice included all four strokes, but I kept the backstroke controlled and eventually reached another 4,000-yard total.

At the end of practice, I swam a single hard 100 freestyle.

I wanted to know what kind of speed I could produce while tired. I was nearly 4,000 yards into the workout and wasn’t attempting an all-out race, but I wanted an honest effort.

I finished in :55 from a push.

The time meant more at the end of practice than it would have at the beginning. It showed that I was developing the ability to find speed after fatigue had accumulated.

It was exactly the evidence I wanted from the clock.

It was also the kind of evidence that made the pain easier to rationalize.

When training is going poorly, rest feels like an obvious correction. When training is going well, rest can feel like abandoning momentum.

Every strong performance made it harder to step away because it suggested the work was producing exactly what I hoped it would.

A race at the end of practice

Thursday morning brought the clearest example yet.

The main set descended through 400, 300, 200, and 100 yards, then repeated shorter versions until only one final 100 remained.

I led the opening round and covered the combined 1,000 yards in approximately 11:00. It was a strong, controlled effort rather than anything close to an all-out swim.

That mattered because I’m scheduled to race the 1,000 on October 25. I want to swim 10:30 or faster, and part of me believes I should already be approaching the low 10-minute range. An 11-minute practice effort didn’t prove I was there, but it showed the necessary fitness was developing.

Scott led the second round, and we pulled the third with paddles. By the final 100, I’d already completed nearly 4,000 yards.

I moved into the neighboring lane so Scott and I could race side by side.

We never need to say much in those moments. Moving into the next lane communicates the intention clearly enough.

We both pushed off hard.

At about 35 yards, I wondered whether I’d gone out too fast. The effort was already hurting. I focused on my turns, held my streamlines slightly longer, and used strong dolphin kicks to carry speed off each wall.

I held a narrow lead into the final turn and attacked the last length. I touched just ahead of Scott.

Our coach called out the times.

I’d gone :51. Scott had gone :52.

We exchanged a fist bump and smiled.

The previous spring, I’d swum :49 at the state meet. Now I’d gone only two seconds slower from a push, during practice, and after nearly 4,000 yards.

That wasn’t merely a good workout time. It was evidence that my speed was returning.

For a few hours, that was the story of the week.

The other evidence

Thursday evening, the other story took over.

Serious pain settled around the inside of my left shoulder blade, near my spine. It no longer felt vague. It felt focused, muscular, and severe.

The most confusing part was that I hadn’t felt it during the morning’s 4,300-yard swim. I’d raced a :51 without pain. Hours later, I couldn’t find a comfortable position in bed.

The pain repeatedly woke me. Lying still hurt more than swimming had.

I’d dealt with variations of this problem for weeks. It had improved, returned, improved again, and now returned with enough force to disrupt sleep and ordinary movement.

A week earlier, I’d finally started calling it an injury. Now the recurrence confirmed that I hadn’t overreacted. The problem hadn’t disappeared. A few better days had only made it easier to believe what I wanted to believe.

I still didn’t know what structure was involved or how long recovery might take. What changed Thursday night was the certainty that temporary improvement wasn’t the same as recovery.

The :51 made accepting that more difficult. How could I produce the clearest evidence of progress I’d seen all season and then back away?

I wanted to keep pushing. The pain was making the decision for me.

When the streak becomes the goal

My family and I traveled to Atlantic City for a weekend of racing. My children were running Saturday’s 5K, while Katie planned to run both the 5K and Sunday’s marathon.

I’d imagined fitting in a fair amount of running and lifting of my own. Those plans disappeared as the pain intensified.

I joined my children Friday morning for a short shakeout run on the Boardwalk. It was an ideal travel workout because it let me move while helping them prepare.

Unfortunately, my back hurt with nearly every step.

Travel had also separated me from the foam roller, electrical stimulation machine, and heating pad I normally use to manage my back pain. I bought lidocaine patches and found a small foam roller at the race expo. Both made the pain more manageable without solving the problem.

I was negotiating with the pain now.

Katie had been telling me for some time that I needed to ease up. She’s a realist, particularly when I’m being stubborn. This time, she was firm. I needed to rest.

I knew she was right. I didn’t enjoy hearing it.

By Friday, I’d completed cardio on 13 consecutive days and at least one workout of some kind for 16 straight days. I was proud of the streak because it represented consistency. It may also have contributed to the problem.

Streaks turn every day into evidence of commitment. They can also become traps. Once the number grows, preserving it begins to feel like a goal of its own, even when keeping it alive no longer serves the larger objective.

If preserving the streak made the next several weeks worse, continuing wouldn’t demonstrate discipline. It would mean I’d confused the measurement with the goal.

Three podiums and a finish line

Saturday belonged to my family’s races.

My daughter finished second overall among the women. My son won the 14-and-under boys division. Katie won her age group.

I spent the morning moving along the Boardwalk, watching, cheering, and making sure I was where I needed to be when they finished. At one point, I ran approximately a mile while moving between locations. Combined with several miles of walking, it provided plenty of activity without forcing another planned workout. That mile extended my workout streak to 17 days, but I stopped there. Sunday would become my first complete rest day in more than two weeks.

All three members of my family got a turn to stand on the podium. Watching them succeed was more rewarding than anything I could have added in the hotel gym.

Sunday belonged to Katie’s marathon.

She’d trained to break 3:40 and earn another Boston Marathon qualifying time. Her preparation included the miles everyone could see and considerable work on nutrition that most people couldn’t.

She finished in 3:33:59.

She didn’t merely break 3:40. She crushed it.

The finish time was the visible result. The training, planning, experimentation, and discipline had happened largely outside anyone else’s view.

Watching her made me imagine how much fun it would be to reach the end of my own season having accomplished what I set out to do. It also reminded me that imagining the celebration is not the same as earning it.

The goal becomes real through hundreds of decisions made when there is no finish line in sight.

Some of those decisions involve doing more.

Others involve knowing when not to.

Resting without quitting

I took Sunday off from formal exercise. After the marathon, we also had to drive roughly three hours to Baltimore for an early Monday flight. There was little practical opportunity to train, and my back needed the rest more than I needed another workout.

The weekend felt like lost training and protected training at the same time.

Missing two days wouldn’t ruin my season. Turning a manageable injury into something severe might.

That lesson should have been obvious after last season’s serratus injury. I stopped nearly everything for more than a month. I didn’t swim, but I also failed to run or bike. I waited too long to seek treatment and became far too comfortable doing nothing.

I refuse to respond the same way this time. If I can’t swim, perhaps I can bike. If I can’t lift normally, perhaps I can work on mobility or rehabilitation. If one movement hurts, I can search for useful work that doesn’t.

That approach is healthier than shutting down completely, but it contains a different danger.

Refusing to do nothing can become refusing to rest.

There’s a balance between surrender and stubbornness. I hadn’t yet found it.

By Sunday evening, my back felt better than it had Friday. Letting go of the streak hadn’t destroyed my fitness. My season hadn’t collapsed because I spent a weekend supporting my family.

The week still included three swims, 12,300 yards, three runs, and my fastest practice 100 of the season.

It was hardly a week of inactivity.

The clock said I was improving.

The pain said improvement didn’t make me invulnerable.

Both were true.

The race I still wanted

On October 25, I’m scheduled to swim the 1,000 freestyle at my team’s fun meet. I remain committed to racing it.

Opportunities to compete in the event before State and Nationals will be limited. I need to establish where my fitness stands, gain experience racing the distance, and learn to keep working when a race-pace 1,000 begins to hurt.

I want to see 10:30 or faster. Part of me believes I should already be approaching the low 10-minute range.

A disappointing result would hurt, but it won’t end the journey. I’ll still have months to improve.

The back injury is different. If it keeps worsening, it could derail the season before I get the chance to discover what I can accomplish.