Passion v.s. Addiction

This week was not a great week for my training. I only did 3 of my planned workouts and I really struggled with getting out the door. I've started classes again so I'm in class 31 hours a week, and this combined with still having to take care of patients and finishing homework has made my life very busy. These aren't excuses but new obstacles that I need to learn to deal with. I love going out and training and one of the best things to do after a long day of classes is to go out for a run and just not think. The problem I run into is that at the end of the day I don't feel like doing anything. I want to relax, kick up my feet and stare at the wall. The idea of going out into the Ga heat and putting my body through a workout seems to be the last thing I want to do. The workouts I did do were forced and painful, partly due to the heat and partly due to the fact I couldn't turn my brain off. This only made me want to skip later workouts that much more. The worst was a short mid week run at the end of a 10 hour day at school. It was suppose to be a fairly easy 45 minute run with a couple 45 second bursts. It wasn't a hilly course and should have been an easy run, but man did I suffer.


It started out at an easy pace and ended at a walking pace. I was about 20 minutes into it when I really started to suffer. I started to get stomach cramps, there was no breeze, and the heat index was close to 117 degrees. I was absolutely drenched in sweat and felt like crawling back home. I made it home after refusing to walk until I was at the front of my neighborhood and I felt like collapsing. This was not what I enjoyed about running, this is not why I train, this is not the sport I love.
This is an issue I have really struggled with. It's a simple concept; if you love to do something it should be easy to do. I love triathlons. I love the complexity of the sport, the attention to detail, the need to not only win a race but to outrace yourself, the desire to become something greater and faster than you ever were before. This really is a passion in my life and yet I still have trouble getting out the door. Why is that? For me when I dwell on this idea, this concept that it should be easy if you love it the only conclusion that I can come to is that there is a difference between an addiction and a passion. I struggle with getting out the door not because I don't love this sport but because I'm not addicted to it. I don't have a need to go out and get my training in. Sure that would make it easier to do my training, but I would dare to say that I would rather have a passion for something than an addiction to something. I might struggle with the day to day of completing my training but when I finish a workout, when I look at my week totals I can say I did that because I wanted to do it, not because I needed to do it. We enjoy things we want to do exponentially more than things we need to do. So while I'm jealous of an athlete who is addicted to his sport for their ability to do their training day in and day out, I would much rather struggle with the day in and day out so that each day can be a victory for me. It's this struggle that lets us feel like true champions of our sport and allows us to inspire people to a whole different level.

Louis Garneau Race Day Revo Transition Bag Review

So now that I've started to collect more and more gear (it's a curse that weights heavily on all triathletes) I decided to look into getting a new bag to carry it all. The $10 bag I picked up from Wal-Mart a year ago has fallen apart and actually kind of smells funny too. As with all my new interests I started with a search on the internet for transition bag reviews and suggestions. Unfortunately I couldn't find too much out there. I found several forums where people talked about how much they loved whatever pack they owned but none of them really went over the features of their bags. I decided to take a different approach and went to my local tri shop (All 3 Sports) and looked through what they had in stock. After spending some time with the sales rep I was between two bags, the TYR Alliance Team Backpack II and the Louis Garneau Race Day Revo. On first impressions I really liked the Louis Garneau. It look nice and clean with a certain amount of class that the TYR was missing. Regardless of the fact that it was "pretty" I really needed something with function and the sales rep swore by the TYR. He was right I could hide a small child in the TYR, but I wasn't convinced I need that much room. Needless to say I went with the Louis Garneau since, well lets be honest if you're not wining the race you might as well look like a pro while you're setting up transition.
The first thing that really catches your eye about this pack is the external helmet holder. This is part of the functionality that I love. It frees up a ton of room inside your bag that would other wise be waisted if you helmet was in there. It also keeps it secure against the bag so you don't have a helmet dangling off the side of your pack hitting you in the legs as you try to juggle your bike, all your numbers, and your pack.


After that you come to the wetsuit pocket. It's huge!!! And it's mesh so your suit dries off pretty easily. It's actually big enough that on race days I throw all my wet clothes in there with my suit so they don't get the inside of the bag all smelly.




There are two fairly large side pockets that I use for all my nutrition and then I put all my race day items like numbers, maps, and such in the other pocket for easy access.





There is also a pocket on top which I use for keys and other small things. Needless to say this thing has pockets all over it which really helps to increase its' storage area.


Now on to the main compartment which I must say is actually pretty impressive. It expands to hold a lot of stuff and has more pockets on the inside to keep your running and cycling shoes separate from the rest of your gear. On race days I'll have both pairs of shoes, two towels, a full change of clothes, and all those extra items you need like deodorant and body glide shoved into this big compartment. There is also a spot for your sunglasses but since I'm always wearing mine I've yet to use it.



I'm sure by now you've seen some red tags on the bag with a white picture on them. These are basically suggestions on what to put in each pocket. It's a nice add on in case you want some help organizing yourself, but some of them are kind of ridiculous... the water bottle tag makes me laugh every time I see it.



I only have two complaints with the bag. The first is that there is only one water bottle holder on the outside of the bag. I know that on longer races I can have 3 or 4 bottles so it would be nice to at least have one more on the outside of the bag. The other is the sternum strap, it broke.


After it came off and I inspected it a little further I saw that it actually isn't sewn on but it's "clamped" on. I'm sure I could have gotten it back on after it came off, but of course this happened at a race and I lost it.


Something just of note is that the material feels really thin and that it might rip easily. I haven't had it rip yet so it's not a complaint, just a concern. Overall I'm very happy with the bag and I would suggest it to anyone looking for an inexpensive way to free up their hands on race day. It's a great pack and I hope that it will give me many more seasons of use.

Georgia Heat

This week of training was tougher than I thought it would be. Last week I went on a beach vacation and had no trouble what-so-ever getting out the door to run. I mean who would when you get a chance to run on the beach every morning and watch the sunrise. This week however I was back in the Georgia heat I did NOT want to train. I don’t know why but for some reason this year the heat is really getting to me. I’ve never had an issue with the heat before, but for some reason (maybe since my best friend gets to train in the amazing Seattle weather) I have skipped way to many workouts because of the heat. I know what your saying, “just wake up early and beat the heat!” I agree and if only it were that easy! I love morning training sessions, but man is it hard to get up in the morning. So my goal this week was to train in the heat and get over it!!!

Overall this week was a light week, most of my workouts were 45 minutes or less but my main concern was getting out the door. I was actually excited to see a week full of short workouts after being on vacation. It let me get back into the rhythm of training for all three sports instead of just running. I didn’t have any problems getting my workouts done until Wednesday. I decided to smoke a brisket for dinner and you have to drink beer while smoking any sort of meat so needless to say I was way to preoccupied with beer and brisket to go and do any training. It’s so easy to skip a workout, but man do I feel horrible at the end of the day. It was only a thirty minute run so it’s not like I couldn’t have done it. I was determined the next day to not only do my workout for Thursday but make up my Wednesday workout. This is what it’s all about. This is when you prove not only to others but to yourself that you are serious and this isn’t just a fad. I’ve had several friends and trainers tell me that you can’t make up workouts and I agree, but that wasn’t what this was about. This was about proving to myself that I was serious and regardless of how I felt about a work out I was going to finish my training for the week. It felt good to finished my missed workout and my scheduled workout for the day, but I still had the weekend ahead of me.

I always struggle on weekend workouts. No one has work or school for the next two days which means hanging out with friends is yet another distraction from my training. I also have an amazing wife who always has fun plans for the weekend which makes me want to hang out with her instead of training. Now you see the struggle I have every weekend. Needless to say she wanted to go blueberry picking in the early morning on Saturday and who was I to stop her so that meant yet another ride in the middle of the day. The only problem was that this was a 2 hour ride and I was really concerned with how the heat would affect me. Picking blueberry was so much fun and since it took up the entire morning I didn’t get to go on my ride until 4pm. Luckily for me the Tour De France started today and after watching the first stage I was so pumped about my ride that I wasn’t able to think about anything but my ride for the day. I had an amazing ride that afternoon and felt so good that I completed all my workouts (kinda - Wednesday) for the week.

I learned this week that our obstacles to our training are not only created by us alone, but are sometime amplified to a level they don’t deserve. The temperature outside is just that... a temperature. You should account for it with water and nutrition, but in no way should it stop you from training. Sometimes we use these obstacles to hide behind, which can cause us to lose sight of our final goals. Don’t let this happen. Remind yourself why you started training and why you continue to train. We don’t chose our goals to be stopped by simple obstacle so don’t let them stop you. You and I are stronger that these thing and all we have to do is remind ourselves of this and continue to inspire ourselves to greatness.

Update!

Wow 2008... 2008! That feels like it was so long ago. Now that it's 2011 a lot has changed in my life, especially with my training. I've picked up doing triathlons and love them! The crowds and athletes at triathlons are a completely different breed of people. There is always a calmness in the air with a hint of anticipationon race days, like a morning fog in the early morning waiting to reveal the day. All the spectators cheer for every athlete and there is a sense of comaradarie that I haven't felt with any other sport. It's almost as if this is truely a race against yourself and the other athletes are there to cheer you on. I'm in the middle of my third season of triathlons and have already completed a 70.3 in Augusta, Ga which was amazing! The swim was fast, the bike was gorgeous, and the run was flat.

I've also picked up a coach! I've said in an earlier post that I need that accountability of a training partner and a coach fit that roll perfectly. I'm a huge advocate of getting a coach regardless of what you know. A coach will always write the workouts you never want to write and they will give you a hard time for missing workouts, which we all need. I've seen huge improvements in just the couple months of training with him and I have high hopes of success that I know can be reached if I just follow his advice.
I haven't lost that inspiration I had three years ago and it has driven me to meet some amazing goals. As with all things we hit highs and lows; I haven't kept this blog up to date but I have kept my training up. I have now decided to put my focus not only into my training , but to also keep this blog alive so that others out there who struggle with the same things I do can find some strength in the idea that you are not alone.

Dedication

I went for my first run last night dedicated to finish the run.  I didn’t set a pace to meet, a time to beat, or ever a distance to run, I just wanted to go out for a run and stop when I felt ready to stop.  It felt great for the first twenty minutes or so but then the years of being out of shape really started to weigh me down and I found myself having doubts.  Is this really something I want to do?  You’ve tried to do this before and it never worked out, what makes you think it will work this time?  You’ve gone far enough for the first day just go ahead and head home.  Despite all these feelings for some reason I continued on.  It wasn’t some supernatural desire or anything other than that this time I was able to say “no this is really important to me I need to keep going.”  I finished out the run with an average of a nine-minute pace and completing about 5 miles.  It felt good to go that far despite how slow my pace was.  It did get me wondering though what was different with this run since the other times that I tried to pick up running again I had quit?  Was it that I had just made the commitment to run that day and quitting wasn’t an option, but later in the weeks or months to come it might be, or was it that I had really started down the road of success?  After thinking about this for a while I came up with the idea that I need a running partner, someone who doesn’t have to run with me but to keep me accountable for my goals and help me through barriers.  Every time I have tried to pick up running again I have tried by myself.  Even when I was in the best shape of my life I still had teammates and friend who kept me responsible for what I had set out to do.  It seems to me one of the best ways for success is to share your goal with someone so that the next time you are thinking of quitting you will have that reminder that you are not only letting yourself down but your partner as well.

To be inspired, to feel a greater calling, to see a new way of life.

With the Olympics going on right now we are reminded almost daily of what inspiration really is.  With the motto of the Olympics being “Citius, Altius, Fortius”, meaning swifter, higher, stronger, it’s obvious that it should bring out not just the best, but the extraordinary in people.  We get to watch athletes like Michael Phelps, Shawn Johnson, and Bernard Lagat inspire us and strive not only for greatness but for eternal glory.  To be remembered beyond death is the only way to truly know that you have inspired not only your generation but their children’s children who will hear your story and dream of reaching such greatness.

            So is this ability to inspire reserved only for the greatest of us, the few who are able to perform beyond what seems humanly possible, or can an everyday man do something inspirational enough to convince those around him that greatness can be found in not just the ability to perform the impossible but also found in the desire for and unending pursuit of greatness? 

I have always watched the great endurance athletes of our time and dreamed of having their talents and physical gifts, but have never come close to running a sub 15 minute 5k or completing a marathon in under 2 hours.  So instead of looking for inspiration in what I can never achieve I want to look for inspiration in the dedication of these amazing athletes.  The day in and day out decision to perform to the best of their ability.  The endless miles and hours they spend alone not competing with other athletes but with themselves.  I want to be able to overcome my own hesitations and barriers and become inspirational with my dedication and commitment to continue on day in and day out.

I have always had a passion, a love for running.  There is something freeing about it.  When it is just you out there on the road your only barrier is yourself.  These barriers may hide as long hills, bad weather, injuries, hangovers, or time away from friends and family, but in the end the barrier truly is only yourself.  I haven’t been a consistent runner in several years and my desire now is to get back to what I loved.  I hope that through this goal I can inspire others to pick up old passions that made them happy and content with themselves regardless of what it was.  So this will be my path, my journey, and my struggle to inspiration.