This Is What Happens When You Type Before Really Thinking.

So…….

Last night I posted this great Success Journal entry where I mentioned that I’m substantially more relaxed for this tri than the one last year because I know what I’m getting into this time. This morning I woke up and the reality of 10 days to my first race of the season hit me. I felt like Dan Cloutier in Game 3 versus Detroit.

Just for the record, Reade and I were sitting eight rows up on Dan’s left shoulder when that shot went in. The phrase “WTF?” was repeated ad nauseum for about three days afterwards.

Anyway, I woke up this morning after much insistence from my wife - “get up, get in the shower, honey get up, get the hell up, get up you bastard, get the f*** up before I pull your scrotum over your head…fine, f**k you I’m getting in the shower…”, swung my legs over the edge of the bed, and just like every morning over the past month or so, stared at my training calendar on the wall.

Crap.

I was supposed to get up at 5am and go for a Zone 2 run for 45 minutes.

My mind, who was over in a corner with a little party hat and one of those tweeters clinking glasses with my legs and lungs, turned around and said something along the lines of “oh…right…sorry about that chief…{snigger}…I guess we didn’t hear the alarm”.

Damn it.

Just then, my Race Day Paranoia ran into the room, wearing a Shield of Unpreparedness +5 and carrying the Mace of Unreasonable Self Doubt. It proceeded to brain everything within striking distance and then ran out, hooting like Daffy Duck the whole way…

Shit.

I’m staring to wonder if I’m ready for this. Really ready. I sat back for a moment and collected my thoughts, all two of them.

Thought #1: I’m ten days out.

Thought #2: Ohhhhhh, right…this is when I become an Asshole.

Right on time.

One thing I’ve learned about myself over the past year since my first tri, is that I tend to get to a point about a week or so before an event when Reason and Logic start running around screaming like a Chinese fire drill, then run headlong into the nearest wall and knock themselves out, leaving me with Fear of Ill-Preparedness and Diabolical Thoughts Of DNF (Did Not Finish, the worst case scenario for any triathlete…death is almost preferable…shame lasts forever). I can almost set my watch by it. Then, for the entire last week leading up to the event, I become snappish, borderline psychopathic, obsessive, and generally turn into a primadonna asshat, subjecting everyone around me to my own personal neurosis.

I know what you’re saying…”better than the Matterhorn, where do I sign?”

Like I said, right on time.

I sighed, got up and showered, and spent the rest of the drive to work turning the whole past eight weeks over in my head. It turned from a celebration of all things causing me personal panic, to a gentle inquiry into how my training has prepared me for this race. Over the twenty minute drive, I came up with the following lessons that I’ve learned:

1. My training has gone extremely well this time. I’ve followed Eric’s plan almost to the exact letter. My heart rate ranges, for the most part (with the exception of the runs) have been right on.
2. Last year, when I was taking the Running Room Learn To Run course, I ran three times a week on average. Consequently I dropped substantially more weight that I have this time. I’ve pretty much petered out around 15 lbs. lost, most likely because I’ve only been running twice a week, and focusing on the overall time rather than increasing my split times. In short, my running strategy this time around has, in a word, failed.
3. This brings me to my third point. By this time in my training, I feel like I should be more sore, more tired, feeling more strained and more pain. I’m guessing that going back to the original Level 1 workout schedule didn’t do me any favours. I wimped out, plain and simple. I really should have started this season on Level 2…I’m no longer a Couch Potato, more like a Neophyte. Quite honestly, this training schedule hasn’t been as demanding as I think it should have been. It probably explains why I haven’t lost as much weight as I wanted to, why I’m not as fast as I think I should be, why I’m not as prepared as I think I could be. I simply have not challenged myself to be the best that I know I can be.
4. Nutrition…the bane of my existence. My nutritional strategy for this training block has run out of gas and stalled somewhere between The Edge of Nowhere and Now Leaving This Plane Of Reality. Let me be completely frank right now: my eating habits suck. I could be lighter, faster, healthier, and it’s no one’s fault but mine. Nutrition is widely hailed as the Fourth Discipline in triathlon, for good reason. This is the one area that I think I need to improve more than any other, and improve it now.
5. I haven’t been as focused as I think I should be. My wife is either scoffing right now, or choking on her coffee, trust me. She’d argue this point until her face turns purple, but I think I’m right. Not just on the training - that was too easy, and consequently it was easier to focus on that and pretend like I was really working hard. I’m talking more about the periphery of the sport - the extras that I’m trying to incorporate into my training. Yoga. Hypnosis. Hydration. Stretching. Body work. The full meal deal with extra kick-ass sauce. Those things that can make incremental differences in my speed, recovery, success. To that end, I’m going to go back to the well and rework my training to reflect those items. I’m going to drill this down even more…sometimes I need to micromanage myself in order to feel like I’m incorporating every aspect of my training into my life…the calendar is a great example of that.

It’s a little odd writing this…I almost feel like I’m doing a race post-mortem a week before the race. Weird. However, it’s provided me with some relief, and taken a lot of the stress that I was feeling this morning off of my shoulders. On May 26th, while I’m resting my body after kicking the crap out of it in search of a new P.B. to start the season, I’m going to think about these points, and plan the four weeks leading to Popeye’s Aquathlon and the seven weeks leading to the Vancouver Tri at Locarno.

• Kick my training into a whole new level - Eric’s training plan 2. I’m going to review after the Aquathlon and if I still feel like I’m not challenged enough, I’ll move to Level 3 for the last two weeks of hard training and the taper week before Locarno.
• Get militant about my nutrition. There are personal choices that I have made and will have to make, and I think Cin will personally thank the Goddess that I’m going to fall in line with the types of dietary choices that she needs to be healthy as well. Since I do about 90% of the cooking (and Pizza Hut tends to do the other 10%), there’s room for immediate and drastic improvement. Eric’s book provided the first little nudge in the right direction, but I’m going to drill it down and move to almost more of an organic/holistic diet with the correct balance of clean carbs and protein, and far more natural sources for veggies and fruit. I’m still going to stick with my Clif bars and Shot Bloks for nutrition pre-, during, and post-event, but I’m not going to rely on so much processed nutrition in the future.
• Re-work my training calendar to incorporate yoga into my off days. Make regular massage therapy appointments with Teri. Work on my mental game with regular self-hypnosis. Factor full 15-20 minute stretching sessions after each long run, long ride, or weight session. Increase weight sessions to 40 minutes from 20. Make decisions every day to do something to work towards my goal - it’s not always about intervals, or hills, or sprint training, or adding more weight to a set. Sometimes it’s about the little quality decisions, made daily, that combine to generate and ensure overall success.
• Factor in time for family and my loved ones. Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in the ‘Need To Do’ that I tend to forget or dismiss the ‘Need To Do For Others’. Improving myself should never come at the expense of my relationship to others, my wife and partner first and foremost. I can’t expect her to support me, spend hours in the rain just to see me for a minute or so here and there, without giving back emotionally, physically, mentally. That goes for my friends and my family as well; sometimes I get so focused on my need to prove myself as an athlete that I lose the opportunity to prove myself as a brother, a son, and a friend.

After all, this is a learning process, and I’m going to rejoice in the pleasure and experience of the journey.

Namaste my friends.