How I Went From Having Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome to #2 on the World SUP Tour... and Then Relapsed

Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome, (ADS), is where you never fully train your aerobic system to be efficient. Then, when you train or race, you end up using mostly anaerobic, not aerobic, metabolism to propel yourself forward. This isn't so good, because anaerobic metabolism releases a lot of cortisol (although, it has it's time and place when planned properly). When you run out of anaerobic energy, your body must reduce speeds to rely on aerobic metabolism, and if you've never trained that system properly, your aerobic pace is painfully slow.

If you want to understand ADS better, go scope out this article I did on Paddle Ninja about it. If you want the science, definitely read that article and leave this blog post. Full warning, this is one of those posts that is partly educational for someone about to make the same mistake, but is more cathartic for me to write so I can process what has happened over the past few years in an effort to fix it. This post isn't really for you. It's more for me. But you're welcome to tag along for the ride.