How to Experience Overtraining Without Doing Any Work at All

Overtraining is something that can turn a champion athlete into a has-been.  If you don't know what overtraining (alternatively spelled as over training) is, Google it.

But you don't have to work at all to experience some of the joy (NOT!) of overtraining.  All you need to do is dine at a restaurant that improperly handles or stores raw fish and get a dose of raw-fish poisoning.  (Google it)

The experience pounced on me after we had dined at a local Japanese restaurant which shall go unnamed herein.  At about 4:00 the next morning I woke from sleep, felt sick and that was the beginning of what might be technically described as stuff coming out both ends in an involuntary series of unpleasant experiences for the next 7 hours.

Yep, 7 hours of involuntary retching etc.  It stopped at about 11:00 am, after my body weight had been reduced to about 176 lbs.  The lowest weight I had seen on the scales during the past few years had been 182 to 184 lbs, so I lost between 6 and 8 lbs in 8 hours and was parched with thirst but unable to hold down even one swallow of water.  Not a swallow, not even a hummingbird's worth of water.

Dear wife came to the rescue with the suggestion that I try holding crushed ice in my mouth and let it melt.  That worked.  It was the best tasting ice I'd ever melted.

Dear wife went to the store and got 6 quarts of coconut-water based electrolyte fluid.  For about 24 hours, all I consumed was a tray of 12 ice cubes, crushed, plus 6 pints of electrolyte fluid.  By that time, I'd regained 6 lbs.  Each pint of water weighs about 1 lb, so that took care of the dehydration.

As for the experience of overtraining without working - the only work was involuntary retching and cramping.  I didn't have to run a marathon or triathlon or do any rowing at all, and I was so weak that I could only walk at the pace of a lazy tortoise.  And I was sore, especially the large muscles in the upper part of my legs.  And I had a foggy brain. It was like a less-than-extreme case of overtraining I experienced once, when I rowed a half-marathon or more every day for a couple months or so.

But now its 4 days later and I'm feeling almost completely normal again.  So the moral of this little true story is that raw-fish poisoning is better than an extreme case of overtraining, because it may not be possible to recover from an extreme case of overtraining.

This is the second post written today ... it was something to do while waiting for dinner, which is being prepared in a non-toxic kitchen right here at home.

I haven't done any rowing at all for 4 days now but wow! I'm hungry!