Here we go again, after a 2-month break from my training blog my regular round-up of stats and thoughts are back on the internet. Although I have found it hard to write for a few months I have not had a break from training which has continued along at its own pace, sometimes fast and sometimes, less fast. And I went racing which, like training was sometimes fast and sometimes less fast.
That break from writing was for mental health reasons, I have been struggling with life and it is hard to put a single reason for that in writing.
I am depressed
That is not a look-at-me right-now statement; it is the reality of my world. I am a depressed person for several, sometimes complicated, reasons. But I am not heading down that route today, so it is safe to keep reading.
I have been depressed for decades, and although I have been on anti-depressants for significant periods I choose to no longer use medication to handle my depression. I appreciate that anti-depressants are a very valuable tool in handling depression for others, but they have not always been great for me, and, at the end of the day, they do not change anything; the reasons or drivers for depression remain. So I try to tackle those, to work out what changes I can make and then try my best to do that. Sometimes that works, sometimes it does not and through June and July, it wasn’t working.
I am no expert on depression, but I do know quite a lot now about living with it and the unbearable weight it can add to day-to-day living. And, at times that weight has been too much for me to cope with.
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| Alone in the forest, a happy depressed person |
Depression, or at least my depression, is not about being unhappy. I regularly experience the ‘high’ of unrestrained happiness and also the emotional response to deep sadness and, for me, these are almost completely unrelated to depression. I think it is quite common to be a happy, depressed person.
I have had professional help over the last 20 or more years, some has been helpful, some has been incredibly painful (mentally, the stuff we choose not to think about before a well-meaning therapist unlocks that box to talk about it … and then ends the session). Most professional help resulted in medication or strongly recommending medication but more recently professional help resulted in my autism diagnosis.
Adult Autism Diagnosis
A long time ago I was told that I had 'autistic tendencies' which doesn't really say anything useful when that is the end of the conversation. There are aspects to my autism that are massively beneficial, if you came here from SUP My Race then there is a very good example!
As an adult, finding out why the rest of the world has been doing things incorrectly for your entire life was a revelation!
Seriously, I find that the majority of people do some things in a baffling way and realising why made a massive difference. We have the incredible Swedish health system to thank for that.
Of course, that diagnosis, the conformation that my brain is wired slightly differently from many/most other brains changes nothing in the real world but that knowledge helps me understand others and that helps me navigate through life. Most of the time.
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| My 10-week recharge (needles out of sight) |
Medication
One disadvantage I have dealing with my depression is with my medication; regular readers will know I take Testosterone. As a double testicular cancer patient, I need Testosterone injections every 10 weeks to function ‘normally’ (whatever that is) and to keep osteoporosis at bay. There are other reasons but they are the headlines. I have been taking large quantities of testosterone for over 23 years and, as a result, this is an area of medicine where I am a Subject Matter Expert, over those 2 decades I have gained real-life experience of this awful hormone that has been in the news so much recently.
Testosterone is awful. It is a well-described trigger for depression and the huge difference in my T levels over the years has, with some retrospective analysis from me, matched my worst depressive periods. When you add the sometimes uncontrollable rage from a high dose or the sloth-like energy levels from times when the drugs simply were not working you get an idea of the rollercoaster a professional drug user can go through.
And all that was, is, largely unseen by anyone because my disability, which it certainly is, is invisible. I look normal, whatever that is, and healthy. I certainly do not appear to have any reason to be fighting with depression.
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| EO SUP Nebula at rest |
What does this have to do with training?
Good question, glad you asked.
Training keeps me going, it gives me a focal point for every day, something I have to do and that is part of my routine, something that autistic me really likes to have. I mean REALLY like. You would be amazed at the security a routine gives a neuro-A-typical person and the comfort that a regular day job brings. But, living with a regular day job also had huge challenges for the undiagnosed me. We will skip past that but suffice it to say I think working would have been a much better experience for me, and many of my former colleagues if I had known that I was neurologically different. I think I could have managed my interactions with 'normal' people in a better way and avoided situations that I found myself in.
The modern workplace is designed for extraverts, not people like me.
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| Taking a breath in the Kattegat |
Training provides focus, regular structured workouts provide a focal point and sessions provide results, in the form of data, that can be measured. Working hard, listening to your coach and analysing your data leads to a series of improvements to our paddling. Be that greater distances, increases in speed or just bigger smiles at the end of a session.
But training can introduce issues as well, largely with our own expectations.
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| Airboard Rocket Light |
Continuous Improvement
I strongly disagree with a phrase that was so often thrown about in my regular job, ‘continuous improvement’. It is simply impossible to improve continuously, you get to a point where improvement is no longer measurable and then you either accept the process as being as good as it can be or you change it, completely. And that is one of the most important things to realise when training with a goal or goals in mind. You will get to a point where improvements are so small that they are hard to measure.
And in our sport, Stand Up Paddling, measuring improvement is already quite difficult. We participate in a slow sport and there are few shortcuts, it is all about the paddler. In an earlier blog I have shown that the difference in average speed for a 27" wide allwater board and a 23" wide specific flat water board over 5km is around 0.7 km/h, which is less than 400m in a 5km out and back Time Trial.
Because you cannot simply buy SUP performance it means that a paddler needs to invest a lot of time, and effort in the pursuit of speed. It can take months of work to progress to 9.0 km/h and longer, maybe years, to get to 9.5k/h or higher.
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| The fastest baord |
And not progressing in training can be difficult.
Sometimes this is known as a training plateau, sometimes this is a result of achieving your goal, and you have reached your potential. Congratulations! Although I bet getting there is frustrating after a few moments.
I have hit a plateau, I know I am faster and fitter than I was a year ago but I am not posting faster Time Trials and that got into my head, along with all the other stuff in there that we are NOT talking about.
Communication let me down
Foolishly, I didn’t talk to Michael about this; I just kept plugging away, but because he’s pretty good at this stuff, coaching, I think he noticed something, probably picked up something in my decreasingly confident post-workout essays. (Edit - looks like I was actually quite specific at times and it would have been hard for Michael to miss it!)
Yes, I write a lot after each session which I think is essential with distance coaching but I digress. In the last 2 weeks, he’s changed the tone of my sessions, they are harder now, pushing me with longer intervals and shorter rests and they are more difficult to do, I usually memorise each session before getting on board and use my Garmin as a reminder and some of these new sessions are pushing my memory as well as my body.
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| One of my sessions from early July |
Although I have been struggling with my performance in the SUP My Race Time Trials, I have managed to win one! Where were all the fast guys in July???? My performance in June was OK, off my best but OK, and July was slow, except on the day I took the new Airboard Rocket Light to the lake and had a go at a 5km on it, which went quite well.
And despite being almost retired I have yet to find a day this year when I could get a good TT done on a day when conditions lend themselves to going fast. My last really good day on the lake was in August 2023!
And now, the stats. A little later in the blog than usual! First 2024 2ith 2023 to compare.
Jan | Feb | Mar | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sept | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
KM | 12,96 | 120,71 | 230,88 | 217,3 | 363,66 | 212,16 | 228,69 | |||||
Weight | 101,4 | 97,3 | 98,3 | 98,2 | 98,6 | 96,4 | 97,9 | 97,2 | ||||
VO2 Max | 49 | 50 | 48 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 49 | ||||
Resting HR | 54 | 52 | 53 | 53 | 51 | 51 | 52 | 52 | ||||
HRV | 45 | 48 | 50 | 47 | 48 | 52 | 51 | 54 | ||||
Training load | 434 | 804 | 1402 | 942 | 1001 | 1510 | N/A | N/A | ||||
5km | N/A | 33m 47s | 32m 33s | 33m 41s | 31m 7s | N/A | 32m 14s | |||||
10km | N/A | 1h 7m 29s | 1h 11m 23s | 1h 7m 39s | 1h 3m 35s | 1h 5m 47s | 1h 3m 54s |
Jan | Feb | Mar | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
KM | 208,69 | 122,34 | 152,94 | 273,27 | 260,77 | 248,81 | 200,4 | 225,94 | 155,90 | 184,02 | 233,05 | 135,03 |
Weight | 98 kg | 96.1kg | 96,3 | 98,7 | 98 | 94,9 | 97,1 | 95,1 | 96,0 | 94,9 | 98,4 | 99,3 |
VO2 Max | 46 | 47 | 47 | 46 | 46 | 47 | 47 | 47 | 46 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
Resting HR | 54 bpm | 50 bpm | 50 | 55 | 52 | 50 | 49 | 49 | 52 | 51 | 51 | 53 |
HRV | N/A | 48 | 48 | 45 | 50 | 54 | 54 | 56 | 46 | 46 | 44 | 45 |
Training load | N/A | 851 | 161 | 723 | 963 | 928 | 913 | 1001 | 615 | 1173 | 242 | 170 |
5km | 38m 18s | N/A | 33m 21s | 33m 7s | 32m 45s | 30m 33s | N/A | 32m 25s | N/A | 31m 57s | 32m 40s | N/A |
10km | 1h 9m 47s | 1h 8m 44s | 1h 15m 55s | 1h 10m 13s | 1h 11m 7s | 1h 3m 10s | N/A | 1h 2m 59s | 1h 4m 8s | 1h 4m 55s | N/A | 1h 16m 44s |
Dreaming of going faster
In a perfect world, I would get a glassy day on the sea with no boats, no wind and no swell, but …. I can dream. For reference, salt water is faster than fresh water, and deep water is faster than shallow water. It has been 18 months since I got a time trial done on salty water, and I am super keen to see what I can do on the Nebula in faster water!
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| A small bit of marine pollution I found on an island |
Am I OK?
Today? I think so. Tomorrow? I don't know, probably.
I love paddling, I get a lot from training and I appreciate the opportunity I have through SUP My Race to work with Michael, with the team at EO SUP and with Thomas at Airboard. I work hard and I am lucky to have sponsors.
Hard work and luck are not always enough to get through the day-to-day and I, like many, stumble occasionally. And recently I have not been OK. I have no one to talk to in the real world, I cannot burden anyone with that, but the virtual world I function in has real-world benefits.
I will end this blog with a request, if you know someone like me in your real world check in on them occasionally. See if they want to go for a paddle or a training session, or hang out what them after you've paddled. It will make a difference to them, although they may never be able to tell you why.
Invest in other people as well as yourself.
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| The SUP My Race range is now available through TotalSUP https://shop.totalsup.com/collections/sup-my-race |
Investing in yourself is the BEST upgrade you can make, with no exceptions. And that is what this series of blog posts are all about, investing in this paddler with the help of World Champion Michael Booth.
You can find out more about Michael's training on his website Booth Training, from his Booth Training Instagram account and on his YouTube channel BoothTV.
You can find me running the Facebook group SUP My Race and now, occasionally, on Instagram.
See you on the water!
You can read the previous training logs here Training Logs and you can get to individual blog posts using the labels in the sidebar.