March Motivation

(I know, I need to write up last weekend's race report.)

Man, we've had an unusually mild winter, but still - March around here just sucks the life out of you. We've had constant cold, overcast skies since I got back from Dallas, and now, a cold spell. This is what I saw on Weather Underground as of about 9 ET. A.M.

And looking out my front door:

The problem with March is that by now this has been going on for MONTHS. It wears you down and mentally beats you up. I've been dressing like this just to go to the pool since October:

I remember reading an entry in Dede Greisbauer's blog where she said that the winter training - months spent bundling up to run, and being stuck on the trainer for hours upon hours - is what makes New England triathletes so tough.

Although I agree with her on principle, I am ready for it to be OVER. I did my time. I did multiple twelve and thirteen mile runs on the damn treadmill getting ready for Cowtown. I've broken in my LeMonde trainer to the point it's no longer a fun new toy.

I want to run in shorts. I want to feel the wind in my hair as I scream down Cascade Pass at 40 MPH with white knuckles and prayer. I want to get out of the chlorine and swim in Mirror Lake.

We're supposed to have a warm spell mid-week, going from the teens to almost 50. (Welcome to the Adirondacks.) It's not permanent, but a nice reprieve. Wednesday is a run - I can bust out shorts.

Fellow Northerners, how do you get through it? I would love to hear.

In the meantime, the damn pool awaits.

Friday Film #8

(Writing this up on Thursday and scheduling it to post on Friday since I might be really busy.)



This is footage of Sister Madonna's Kona finish five years ago. (For those who don't watch Kona every year, she's a nun who does Ironman every year and the reason they had to open a 74-79 and now 80+ age group.) She was the last finisher, making the midnight deadline by less than a minute. Fire dancers, a special song queued up just for her, an interview with Mike Reilly, and a crazily cheering crowd were all waiting for her.

This is to remind me to not worry about my time or placement on Saturday and that even if I AM last (actually probably won't be, but close) oftentimes in a triathlon, the last finisher gets the biggest rock star finish of all.

See you on the other side.

Taper Brain

...I SHOULD be writing up a nice, coherent entry about my tune-up sprint race on Monday night. I SHOULD be paying attention to the teleconference I'm currently listening in on for work.

I have complete and utter taper brain. I've had butterflies in my stomach since MONDAY.

It's going to be a LOOOOOONG 2.5 days until the gun goes off.

Breakdown

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Eliot

Well, it happened. I started training in Tinman on February 1st and have been slowly adding milage and adding time and putting a ton of training in the bank. Two weeks ago and originally this week were over 16 hours of training, a level of training I had never done before, not even for the two HIMs I did last year.

I was holding up fairly well until the end of two weeks ago. That Saturday had been my first ever 70 mile ride and it was followed by a two mile jog. I actually felt pretty good after it. The next day, however, it was very cold, windy, and rainy so I was forced to do two hours of running on the treadmill to avoid getting sick. It sucked, but I got through it by reminding myself that recovery week started the next day.

Now, usually on recovery weeks, I start getting antsy about halfway through. This time, I wasn't myself until Saturday, day six of recovery week. This gave me two days of feeling normal again before another 16 hour week started.

And "start" it did with my first flat of the season. A flat in which both CO2 cartridges were used up before I realized that I had put the punctured tube right back on my bike and had to call for a pickup. (Lesson learned: Never put the two tubes next to each other when changing a flat.) I was already extremely cranky about the condition of Route 86 BEFORE the flat and this did not add to my mood.

The next day, my run went well but I completely and utterly blew up on the swim, which was 3500 of speed work. I usually find short, fast sets a fun, quick way to blast through lots of yardage, but I had to get out of the pool halfway through. That's two out of three workouts only partially completed.

Wednesday? ANOTHER flat, this time on my front tire. I did manage to change it successfully and finish my ride, but STILL. No breaks this week.

And yesterday - carnage. I dragged myself through a run that should have been easy but felt hard. Then I hauled myself to the pool for a workout I didn't feel like doing. I did complete it, but my times were 10 secs/100 off what they should have been. I spewed a lot of negative thinking in my logs. (Which, by the way, is a most excellent way to ensure a call from your coach.)

In retrospect, I should have communicated my exhaustion to my coach earlier in the week. LIke I said, stubbornness and that never-ending quest to get a "gold star" and do everything perfectly got in the way of listening to what my body needed.

Luckily, today is a rest day and tomorrow's brick has been knocked down to a shorter (but still pretty long) bike ride. My coach and I will see how I feel on Sunday afternoon and go from there. I'm hoping I'm mentally and physically ready for what she originally had planned, but I need to let go and be okay with her taking it down a notch if that's what I need.

And now for something lighter - stay tuned for this week's Friday Film.