Self Motivation

What a great week of training!  It's been cold.  It's been wind.  It's been wet and I haven't missed a day yet.  Not that I didn't struggle this week, but unlike so many weeks before I was able to get myself out the door every time I needed to.  Tuesday and Saturday were probably my most difficulty days.  Tuesday was a long day at work and all I wanted to do was relax and have a drink, but I forced myself out the door and got the job done.  My watch died halfway through the run so I lost all my data, but at least I finished it.  I wasn't happy with my run, but I was at least happy that I had done it.

Saturday was one of those days where it seemed like everything was against me.  It was suppose to be warm and it wasn't.  It was suppose to be a light mist of rain and while it wasn't heavy it certainly wasn't a mist.  It was windy.  It's always windy here.  It might not be hilly, but it's windy and I think I would rather have the hills.  I struggled all day with heading out the door and I kept coming up with excuse to not go running.  I had things to do around the house and errands to run.  It seemed the more I put off my run the more I didn't want to do it.  If I was being completely honest I would also have to say that I was somewhat intimidated my the 8 mile run that I had planned for the day.  It seemed to linger over me all day and I started to come up with more and more excuses.  "I think I have a swollen lymph node, maybe I'm sick"  "I'm not ready for a run this long, it's too early."  "I want to relax, it's the weekend who really wants to waste an hour and a half running."  Luckily unlike so many times before I didn't listen to myself and I remembered that this is something I want to do.  This is something I enjoy and I want to get better at.  So I headed out the door.

As I ran I started to think about what made this time different.  What made me overcome my obstacles and head out the door?  The more I thought about it the more I realized that it wasn't anything magical or anything unique.  It was simple the fact that this time I was real with myself.  This time I owned up to what I had decided to do and held myself accountable.  Sometimes we forget that the best motivation is ourself, or maybe it's that we get to caught up in finding motivation in others.  Either way I think we need to stop looking so much at other people for inspiration and start looking at ourselves as inspiration.  The best part is if you learn to inspire yourself you will never feel disappointed.  You will never feel like a failure.  This week I inspired myself and learned a new truth.  That I'm not limited my my excuses and that I can head out the door even when I don't feel like I can.

New Place and New Goals

This weeks training was... uneventful.  I started a clerkship at the Naval hospital in Portsmouth this week, which needless to say has taken up a lot of my time.  Training in the morning is pretty much off limits since I've been up at 5am almost every day to get to the hospital on time.  This means I have to do my training in the evening and needless to say it's been more difficult than I expected.  I'm use to having longer breaks in the middle of the day where I can fit my training in, but now that I'm working a normal 8 hour day I have to set aside some time later on in the day.  This is way harder than I thought it would be.  It seems like every time I get home I have errands I need to run or I am just to tired (lazy) to go out a run.  I blame a lot of it on being in a new place and having to deal with all that comes along with that, but in the end I had the time and should have gone out even for a short run.  This isn't me beating myself up, it's me being honest.  I don't like excuses and I think everyone should at least be honest with themselves.  It's the only way to really improve yourself.

I did get out the door today and had a amazing three mile run.  It was a great reminder that one of my favorite ways to explore a new area is to go out for a run.  You get to really take in everything and see a lot of the areas you wouldn't normally see driving.  The beach is less than a mile from where I'm staying and I haven't been there yet, so I headed down to the beach for my first run here.  It was amazing out there.  There was almost no one on the beach and I really felt like I was by myself.  When I got back I was revitalized and started to think about my season coming up.  The first triathlon I do is normally in april.  There is also a marathon in march the weekend I head back to atlanta that Trey and I had talked about.  The more I think about it the more I really want to do it.  It really would be great to be in marathon shape before my triathlon season even starts.  I also like that I'll have a sort term goal to focus on and keep me motivated.  Three months is enough time to train for a marathon, but I will have to be incredibly dedicated.  I can't miss more than a couple days of training if I really want to be able to do this. So now my next step is to call Trey up and work on a training plan for the next three months.  Hopefully after that I'll have a marathon under my belt before the triathlon season even starts.

Does Skiing Count As Cross-training?

It's been a while since I posted, but I actually have a reason. I spent the last week on top of a mountain!  Ok so it may have been West Virginia where the mountains aren't as high as some out west, and there may have been a ski resort up there to keep us warm, but there was definitely no cell phone reception and we had to use some sort of "wire" to connect our computers to the internet... I think it's called an "ethernet cord???"  Since everyone had to check their facebook and email accounts our time "plugged in" was limited.  By the end of the week I started to remember how you can have fun without all of our gadgets and gismos.

This was my first time skiing and I would have to say I was a little nervous.  My wife's family have been skiing their entire lives and are really quit good at it.  Of course me being me I wanted to be a natural and even though I was better than most I was far from the best.  We had decided that the best way to approach this was ski lessons.  I know there are a lot of people decide to let their friends and family teach them and after watching some of those people I would high suggest ski lessons from a professional.  A professional is there to teach you and knows exactly how to teach you.  Your friends may know how to ski and may be the best skier on the mountain, but that by no way makes them a great teacher.  I heard way to many conversations like, "just go man, you just have to man up and go!"  I don't know about y'all but the advice I want from my instructor is not to "man up," but how and what I can do to make it down the hill in one piece.

The wife and I right before we head out to ski on my first day!

My first day of ski lessons went great!  I learned how to snowplow (or pizza pie as me and some of the kids called it) and I learned the basics of turning.  I never fell and after going down the bunny slope, which was a green, several times I felt I was ready to hit the slopes with the rest of the family.  I could have never been more wrong...  If the ground wasn't flat I was terrified and i spent the entire day either pizza pieing or on the ground.  There was a small hill on one of the greens that after my first day became know as "my hill."  This was not because I loved this hill, enjoyed this hill, or even thought it was a nice view.  I loathed this hill.  I was terrified of it and I fell a good 8 to 10 times going down this thing.  I would get up and fall after about 10 feet and this continued all the way down the hill.  Needless to say I was so frustrated and really didn't know if I was going to like skiing.

The bunny hill where they held ski lessons

The next day went much better.  I went to another ski lesson and after avoiding "my hill" all day I was starting to stay more up right then on the ground.  I was still pizza pieing, but I would only fall once or twice on each slope.  It was at the end of the second day that I realized I really like skiing.  It was a challenge and even though it took all of my concentration to stay up I was enjoying myself more and more.  It really reminded me how you can have such a great feeling when you accomplish something you struggle with.  It felt amazing to push through the hard times and the frustration.  I never gave up and by the end of the week I could go down all of the greens, including "my hill," and I even started on a blue!

That's me in yellow pizza pieing!

So how was my triathlon training while in West Virginia?  Not so hot... pun intended.  I brought my running shoes, but once we got there I found that there really wasn't any place to go run.  It was a small mountain with a lot of people.  There were no trails to walk/run on.  The roads were narrow and covered in cars.  Regardless of all this we skied from the time the slopes opened till the time they closed.  I was so tired at the end of the day that I don't know if I would have gone out and run even if I could.  The workout from skiing was actually a really good one and it hit most of the major muscle groups you use while running.  My thighs would burn at the end of a long slope and I was really getting a workout in my hip abductors, mainly from getting back up after falling but hey they were still getting worked!  Of course skiing worked those muscles a little differently, but cross training is a great way to maintain your fitness.  It breaks up the monotony of day in day out training.  So even though I wasn't running I was still working towards my training goals, just through different means.  I picked up a new hobby and was able to overcome another obstacle in my life... now thats what I call a vacation!

and so it begins... again

It's been a while since I've done a blog post and it's been a while since I've gone out for a run.  I hit a point where I started to feel like I was only running because I felt like I had to and not because I wanted to.  It happens every now and then and sometimes you just need to take a break from it all.  I enjoyed a couple weeks off from training where I didn't do much of anything, which was nice, but now I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.  Another reason it's taken me so long to start training again is really just laziness.  I've even had days where I sat there wanting to run but never really stood up to head out the door.  It's the worse excuse ever, but if I'm honest with myself it's the only reason.  I had a Talk with Trey the other day and he really helped to motivate me.  Even though he kept claiming that "he can't motivate me and only I can motivate myself," he really did help me to get out the door again.  There are only a few people out there that understand me well enough to know how to motivate me and he is definitely one of them, so heres to you bro!

I went for a run today that ended up being a fairly light workout.  I had intended on going for three miles but about 8 minutes in I decided to make it and easy 2 miles.  It wasn't that I was suffering or that I didn't enjoy the run, it was just that I felt like 2 miles was enough and there really wasn't a need to go any further.  The more I thought about it the more I realized it didn't matter how far or how long I ran, just that I went out and ran.  I've been out of it for long enough that I need to rebuild the habit of going out and running.  I was happy afterwards and I'm hoping that if I take this one day at a time I can get back into the habit without to much difficulty.  On another note I've found a couple motivational pictures/saying and I'm going to share them from time to time when I feel the idea of the saying really fits well with my blog post so for todays I have the following:

The Off-Season

Now that it’s the off-season I’m really having a difficult time staying focused.  My life has slowed down, I’m almost done with all my school requirements, and I really want to enjoy my free time.  This has made getting out the door that much more difficult.  I know, I know, how can to much free time make it harder to get out the door?  Well simply put, instead of feeling like 8am is the only time I have to go run I talk my self out of it saying, “it’d be nice to sleep in and you can just go run after lunch.”  Lunch time comes and the same thoughts pop into my head.  Without knowing it I’m laying in bed going to sleep wondering where my day has gone.

I’m taking a break from my EC coach and my best friend has taken over writing my workouts for the off-season.  I’m a firm believer in never writing your own workouts regardless of how much you know.  If you write your own workouts you will always write the workouts you want to do instead of the workouts you need to do.  It kind of runs along the same lines as self diagnosing, you will see what is most important to you and not necessarily what is most important.  After talking with Trey and hashing out the details we decided to give it a 12 week trial. Trey being Trey he set the goal of getting me marathon ready by March.  I like having goals and after this last week of training Trey really proved to me that I need to have a goal even to get through my day to day training.

My training started out great and then ended not so great.  Since my number one goal is consistency Trey set up the first few weeks to work on this almost exclusively.  In fact he wanted to work on this so much so that I had a couple 15 minute bike rides planned.  Now I’m not one to complain about short workouts but even I felt like this was a short one.  We talked about it and he had some valid points and if consistency is really what I want to work on I can’t be concerned with distance, right?  It’s like I tell so many patients; work on one area at a time.  If you try to completely change your life around you are going to become overwhelmed and have a much harder time reaching your goals.  So with this all in mind I set out with the goal of just completing all my workouts.  I ended up missing all of my 15 minute bike rides, go figure, and I didn’t do any of my workouts this weekend.  As always I started to think about what I did wrong and about half way into the list I realized that maybe I’m approaching this all wrong.  Maybe instead of looking at what I did wrong maybe I should look at what I do right when I do finish my workouts.  On mornings when I can get out of the door I make a conscious effort the night before.  I set out all my running gear, I pack my lunch, and I hide my alarm clock on the other side of the room.  So I think from now on instead of looking at what I did wrong I’m going to focus on what I have done right and how I can use that to help me stay focused.  It might not work every time, but I think it will really help me to understand how I can turn around my training.

Augusta Ironman 70.3

I finished! And I can tell you there were moments where I thought I wouldn't. As you all know I didn't do nearly the training I needed to do and the two weeks leading up to my race were empty of any type of training except maybe one long run. Taking all of this into account my goal was just to finish. I had a high hopes of breaking 5 hours this year and would have even liked to have beaten my time of 5:35:28 from last year, but I needed to be a realist and set an achievable goal so the idea of just trying to finish was a great one. This was still a feat to be proud of and something I could be excited about especially taking my training into account.

We arrived in Augusta Georgia around 1:00pm on Saturday and headed straight to registration. I love getting to drive through the downtown area and see all the triathletes walking around and all the bikes on their cars. There is an energy in the air that is just intoxicating and you can't help but get excited about what is about to happen. Registration was quicker than expected which was nice since we got into town later than we wanted to. The whole registration process was a great experience and it was almost impossible to get lost. After registration we went and dropped my bike off at transition which again was very smooth. I would have to say even though Ironman races are expensive, they are well worth the money. From the instant you show up to registration to the point you cross the finish line and well after that you receive 5 star treatment from all the staff and volunteers. It is incredibly well put together and so smooth that I would have to say everyone out there should do at least one ironman event just to experience it. With all of our triathlon obligations done we went to visits friends and a new family member that was born just the day before, what great timing!

My swim wave started at 7:48am so my goal was to get there around 5:48am so I would have more than enough time for transition set up and a warm up. As I was setting up my transition area I had a funny feeling come over me. A weird motion in the ocean if you will, a sense of "urgency" in my bowls. I shot straight up and knew something needed to be done. I shuffled to the porta-potties and as I dispensed that urgency I felt I also lost my contact... yes... in the porta-potty. "Great there is no way I'm even going to look for it in here much less put it back in my eye." Now that I'm half blind, squinting out of one eye trying to find my transition area I had left half set up I started to wonder if this was the start of a downhill roll for the rest of my day. I finished with my transition set up and I would have to say it looked great. All of my gear was perfectly laid out and I'm willing to bet a passerby would have taken a double take at the perfection that was my transition area. Alright maybe not, but still I was happy with it.

Now on to the swim start! I grabbed my empty bag, wetsuit, and goggles and headed out to the buses to catch a ride to the swim start. The line was so long and it was getting so close to my start time that I decided to just walk it at a brisk pace and get a light warm-up in, a two-for if you will. After a brisk 15 minute walk and throwing on my wetsuit it was about time to start this thing. There was a dock that went out into the water which was our starting point and as we walked across it swayed from side to side adding a level of difficulty that I didn't expect. I made it across safely, despite having to brace myself several times, and jumped into the water. It was way colder than I expected which was nice later on in the swim. Now we all know I am not a swimmer. I have been described as a "rock," a "retarded dolphin," and my favorite "safe only in the kiddie pool." All this taken into account I love this swim! It's downstream and the current is fairly fast so you can pretty much just float down the river. Now most people use the current to put out blazing fast times for a 1.2 mile swim, I on the other hand use the current to survive the swim. What can I say we all have our strengths and swimming is not one of mine. Once I was finished floating down the river I ranup to transition and plopped down in front of the "wetsuit strippers." Ha no no not that kind of stripper, but people who help you get your wetsuit off ASAP. Here's where I ran into a problem. I forgot to put on body glide and needless to say the strippers didn't pull as hard as they should have (that's what she said?). After several pulls they got my wetsuit off me and off to my bike I ran.

With the swim behind me and the run still ahead of me I wanted to take the bike fairly easy. I kept my overall pace above 19mph, but I made sure to spin up every hill and take them nice and easy. For the most part the bike course is fairly flat with maybe just a couple longer or steeper hills. Overall I felt great coming off the bike and was really starting to feel like I could finish this thing closer to my time from last year than I had expected, man was I wrong.

This is just out of transition

T2 went off without a hitch and I was off and running. The plan was to take the run in 4 stages. Each about 3 miles long and work on getting negative splits. Last year I went out way to fast and didn't have enough nutrition so I didn't want to repeat that mistake. I started with a nice 10 minute pace and wanted to use the first 3 miles to find my legs. I was feeling tired, but I knew this one wasn't going to be easy. This feeling was going to come eventually and I was surprised it took as long as it did to show up. As part of my motivation I want to count out the miles, one down, two down, and so on. The only problem with that was I also started thinking "12 more to go, 11 more to go, aww man this hurts!" As I reached the 3 mile mark I was still feeling like I hadn't found my legs yet so I decided to keep the 10 minute pace until I got to mile 6. Mile 6 came and I died. From mile 6 all the way to the finish it became a unbearably painful. My legs were screaming at me and my whole body was starting to ache. I started setting goals like; "reach mile marker 7 and you can walk for a bit," which then became; "run for 3 blocks and then you can walk one block," and ultimately became " just run to that tree over there!" It was rough and I can tell you if my parents, wife and mother-in-law weren't there cheering me on I would have disappeared around a corner and taken a nap. At the last aid station I took a shot of water, then powerbar perform, coke, and I just started to run. It wasn't fast but I was determined to at least run across the finish line. I rounded the corner entered the shoot and decided that since my time didn't matter I was going to get a great finish line photo. As I come up to the photographer 2 guys go sprinting by me and deflated any hope I had of taking a cool finishing pic. I could just see the pic now, three guys crossing the finish line in a sprint for glory and me in the background with my arms held out oblivious to what was going on around me.

There I am coming around the corner in the blue jersey

There are those two guys coming up behind me...

and there they go stealing my thunder.

Needless to say it was a difficult race and I really suffered, but I would do it again in a heart beat. It was a great experience and I learned that even though I can do a 70.3 without much trainer I never want to do one without training for it again! I came in just over 6 hours and comparing that time to last year I only really lost time on the run. I feel great about that and I know that next year I will rock it!

Anticipation

Here it is, my big race, the thing I've been waiting for all year and I feel completely unprepared! I chose to say "waiting" instead of "training" because well lets be honest I've done less training than I had hoped to, and now that I sit on the eve of my big race I would be lying if I didn't say I had some regret for missing so many workouts so close to my race day. Now that I sit here thinking back on my season and how it has strayed far from my plan I can't help but to wonder what, if anything went wrong.

This was a year full of high expectation. I purchased a new bike, hired a new coach, and really had the desire to change my priorities around. As I looked back on my season I have mixed feelings about it. My times were faster than last year, but always fell short of what I wanted to meet. I probably missed just as many workouts as I made and I don't feel like I've met any of my season goals. Are these really failures? Does this mean that I'm sub-par? Or does this mean my goals were to high and I expected to much out of myself? Honestly I think the answer is no. I heard a quote the other day and I think it very appropriate.

"The greatest danger for most of us in not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it's too low and we hit it." - Michelangelo

As I thought about it I realized that even though I sent high goals just because I missed them doesn't mean I didn't accomplish anything. I did beat my times from last year and I also found out the other day that I place 3rd in my age group for the series. Tri The Parks is a local triathlon series that goes from state park to state park in Georgia. For each race you get a certain number of points and at the end of the series they determine the placings for the whole series. So even though I didn't win a race or meet any of my personal goals I did make a great accomplishment that I can be proud of. This was something great that I wasn't even expecting and I should be proud of my achievements even if they weren't expected.

There has been a lot that has gone on in my life and my training has had to take a back seat. This is something I learned from a friend as I watched her sacrifice what some would say was to much for her workouts. I watched her struggle in school and I have learned that even though I love to do triathlons I can't lose sight that it's a hobby and should never be an obsession. Even though sometimes I use this as an excuse to get out of training when I really do have the time, I can say that this is an ideal I need to maintain. I do want to become more focused with my training, but never at a sacrifice to my livelihood or my family.

I had a conversation with my coach earlier today and it was really reassuring. Instead of saying you can do it, or don't worry about it he actually had a plan. This to me was way more reassuring than denying my weaknesses and actual gave me more confidence in my abilities. This doesn't mean I'm not nervous and have random feeling of "woe is me", but it does mean that I have something to reassure myself. A proverbial rock to keep me anchored in the sea of regret and doubt. So even though this year of training was not what I expected it was still a great journey and I can only hope to learn from it and use it to improve myself next year. Speaking of next year my best friend has been trying to get me into doing an ultra-marathon and I think he has finally worn down. So as my triathlon season ends my running season begins with a new goal on the horizon. I don't know where this journey will take me but it most certainly will be a fun one.