I did the same workout today as I did on Tuesday (see that post for its description).
Was it any easier? No. But, a la the Borg, I did adapt somewhat. In that I wasn't concerned about my ability to do it and I knew what was coming so I could anticipate the discomfort and, well, just deal with it. Maybe there was some new speed entering my body during it. The run in particular was not pleasant. I did it, I negative split it, but today I avoided moaning out loud so nobody would come up to me and ask if I was OK. But you should have seen the sweat flying off me on the bike. I can sweat pretty impressively for such a petite woman. Rest assured that I clean off any gym equipment I use really well.
Interesting concept, that of adapting vs. having the same workout feel easier. I think some people expect that at some point the training will become easier. Au contraire, as the saying goes, it doesn't get any easier, you just get faster. At least if you are doing it right. If you keep doing the same thing, at the same intensity, over and over, are you going to become more fit? No. You will be able to maintain the fitness you have, but that's about it. So it's like a poker game where you are betting against yourself and trying not to fold.
Our bodies are amazing pieces of machinery. They adapt to a workload by growing more capillaries, increasing the number of mitochondria, enlarging muscles, pumping more blood with each stroke and changing the metabolism to burn more fat at progressively higher work intensities. And then once the adaptation has taken place (which happens when we are resting, in general), the body says, "More, please?" Or at least that's what its trying to tell you, up to a point.
As we adapt, we become more efficient at processing fuel, too, so it's a vicious cycle of becoming more fit and to an extent, burning less calories. Assuming you stay at the same intensity. So you need to up the ante in order to produce the stimulus to keep your fires burning. Much like a drug addict can need more and more of a drug to get the same high. Endurance athletes are just addicted to a different drug. The performance drug.
But sometimes you need to detox and drop things down a bit, like during a taper or after a big race or at the end of the season and let your body and mind work through that craving to get that fix and build up to it once again gradually and maybe even exceed the fitness you had before you started. If you forget to detox, your body will happily tell you that you need to by ratcheting down your performance or making you physically sick. Then you go on to surprise yourself (it was no surprise to your body, though) to exceed the fitness you had before the bodily-imposed detox program.
So for all of you out there currently in detox because you are tapering for Hawaii or Florida or are at the end of your racing season, think of it as a way of coming down off your usual high so you can get that zing back when you race or start to ramp up your training again. If we didn't periodically detox, we wouldn't know how good the drugs are, would we?
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Quote of the Day
"Pain is speed entering the body."
--Rich Strauss
Going to hit that same workout I did on Tuesday this afternoon. I can't wait!
--Rich Strauss
Going to hit that same workout I did on Tuesday this afternoon. I can't wait!
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
My Coach Got Hisself a BLOG
It's here. I also put a link in my sidebar at the head of the Collective.
I am sure it will evolve as time marches on. If you are looking for heavy-duty training advice along the lines of Rich's philosophy, please go to his forum. Everyone is welcome there.
Oh, and since it's the off-season for lots of us North America folks, any of you who are self-coached might want to take a look at Rich's off-season training plans. Feedback from those who have used them is that they are DA BOMB. I wouldn't know--I keep paying him to tell me what to do based on the crazy shit I decide I want to do and somehow he makes a training plan out of it!
Oh yeah, did a tempo run today, I am dialing into some faster running!
I am sure it will evolve as time marches on. If you are looking for heavy-duty training advice along the lines of Rich's philosophy, please go to his forum. Everyone is welcome there.
Oh, and since it's the off-season for lots of us North America folks, any of you who are self-coached might want to take a look at Rich's off-season training plans. Feedback from those who have used them is that they are DA BOMB. I wouldn't know--I keep paying him to tell me what to do based on the crazy shit I decide I want to do and somehow he makes a training plan out of it!
Oh yeah, did a tempo run today, I am dialing into some faster running!
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Evil Bike Workout
All right, sports fans. It's been 5 days since my last ride, and I still have a lingering cold/cough (the fever is gone). The weather is getting shitty in Chicago, but I still haven't set up my trainer in the house since I am still drying/sanitizing the carpet downstairs. I didn't want to ride outside today because of my lungs, so I headed to the Y to use the Precor bike to do this:
WU: 15' Easy, include 3-4 x 30" spinups.
MS: 6 x 30/30's, 6' @ FT, 2' Easy,
8 x 30/30, 8' @ FT, 2' Easy,
10 x 30/30, 10' @ FT, 2' Easy,
10 x 30/30.
CD: 5' Easy
If I thought last week's Tuesday/Thursday bike workout was hard, welcome to today! I don't feel too bad about using the Precor bike since it at least has a watts readout, and I have learned how to calibrate it against my "real" watts on my tri bike and also by feel.
This workout was a bitch. A mean, ugly, won't leave you alone bitch. Even though the work intervals weren't that long, I was pushing so hard on the 30/30's that I gulped when I would get to the FT section, and then cry when I only had 2' to recover. But I did it, and I actually got stronger as the session wore on. Sweat was pouring off me like crazy!
And then, of course, I got to run. But only 20' today, thank God. I was supposed to have run a lot more last week but couldn't because I got sick, so I wasn't sure if the 20' limit was because this was a drop week for running or just because the damn bike workout is so hard. I am choosing Option B, thank you very much. I was happy to only run 20'. At some point I must have been groaning out load because the trainer on duty came up to me to ask me if I was all right. I asked her why was she asking and she said she heard a sound coming out of me and thought she should check. I smiled broadly and told her that it is just that I'm doing a really hard workout, and thanks for checking on me, but unless I'm laying on the floor I am doing just fine!
The run went just fine, negative split as always, and boy am I tired. It's tough to tell if the residual tiredness is from the difficulty of the workout or whether from being still a bit sick. This time I'm going with Option A.
I feel like I executed the bike workout almost spot on today, and let me tell you that's one mother of a workout. But all I can think when I do something like this is that if I don't work hard, I don't get faster. Period. Getting faster the way I do it on the bike is not what most people would consider fun. Hell, much of the time I am not thinking, "Boy is THIS fun!" I am usually thinking "Please legs just hold out for the rest of this mother-fucking interval." But when it's over it feels great because I know I put in a good effort that will pay dividends down the road. And you've heard me say it before, riding hard like this is NEVER boring. How can you be bored when you are pushing yourself so hard? I don't care whether it's fun. I just care whether I can do it, and whether it makes me faster. Does this mean I don't appreciate riding my bike? No. I just appreciate what I can do and what will happen as a result. I sure do enjoy my warmup and recovery periods, though. Those are the best! And there is usually enough of them (in my long rides, anyway) for me to look around, smile, enjoy just being on my bike and feeling good.
I am going to sleep like a baby tonight!
WU: 15' Easy, include 3-4 x 30" spinups.
MS: 6 x 30/30's, 6' @ FT, 2' Easy,
8 x 30/30, 8' @ FT, 2' Easy,
10 x 30/30, 10' @ FT, 2' Easy,
10 x 30/30.
CD: 5' Easy
If I thought last week's Tuesday/Thursday bike workout was hard, welcome to today! I don't feel too bad about using the Precor bike since it at least has a watts readout, and I have learned how to calibrate it against my "real" watts on my tri bike and also by feel.
This workout was a bitch. A mean, ugly, won't leave you alone bitch. Even though the work intervals weren't that long, I was pushing so hard on the 30/30's that I gulped when I would get to the FT section, and then cry when I only had 2' to recover. But I did it, and I actually got stronger as the session wore on. Sweat was pouring off me like crazy!
And then, of course, I got to run. But only 20' today, thank God. I was supposed to have run a lot more last week but couldn't because I got sick, so I wasn't sure if the 20' limit was because this was a drop week for running or just because the damn bike workout is so hard. I am choosing Option B, thank you very much. I was happy to only run 20'. At some point I must have been groaning out load because the trainer on duty came up to me to ask me if I was all right. I asked her why was she asking and she said she heard a sound coming out of me and thought she should check. I smiled broadly and told her that it is just that I'm doing a really hard workout, and thanks for checking on me, but unless I'm laying on the floor I am doing just fine!
The run went just fine, negative split as always, and boy am I tired. It's tough to tell if the residual tiredness is from the difficulty of the workout or whether from being still a bit sick. This time I'm going with Option A.
I feel like I executed the bike workout almost spot on today, and let me tell you that's one mother of a workout. But all I can think when I do something like this is that if I don't work hard, I don't get faster. Period. Getting faster the way I do it on the bike is not what most people would consider fun. Hell, much of the time I am not thinking, "Boy is THIS fun!" I am usually thinking "Please legs just hold out for the rest of this mother-fucking interval." But when it's over it feels great because I know I put in a good effort that will pay dividends down the road. And you've heard me say it before, riding hard like this is NEVER boring. How can you be bored when you are pushing yourself so hard? I don't care whether it's fun. I just care whether I can do it, and whether it makes me faster. Does this mean I don't appreciate riding my bike? No. I just appreciate what I can do and what will happen as a result. I sure do enjoy my warmup and recovery periods, though. Those are the best! And there is usually enough of them (in my long rides, anyway) for me to look around, smile, enjoy just being on my bike and feeling good.
I am going to sleep like a baby tonight!
Monday, October 09, 2006
Fit vs. Healthy
Funny how being sick makes you think about things. In that sense, I think that illness, just like any other misfortune that might befall us, can be a blessing. Ah, grasshopper, I can think back to Ironman Brazil when it turned out that being physically sick was a blessing to me at the time.
But I digress. Herein I present more ruminations on the endurance life.
Premise: Triathlon training and racing can be part of a healthy lifestyle, or it can be used to push one's boundaries of fitness only, which may or may not be part of a healthy lifestyle.
Definitions (credit to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
Discussion
Here is some interesting reading on endurance sports and health: http://www.arthurdevany.com/archives/endurance_training_death_injury_and_risk/index.html
One's triathlon fitness is a pretty easy thing to measure--the ability to complete a given race distance in a given time. The faster the time, the more fit you are relative to everyone else in that race. One can argue that the ability to complete a triathlon under normal cutoff rules (let's say 2 hours for a sprint; 4 hours for Olympic distance; 8 for 1/2 Ironman and 17 for Ironman) implies a high level of fitness; although we've all heard stories about people completing the distances on little to no actual training. Now, depending on how much under those cutoffs a person goes would appear to be a fair indicator of one's fitness compared to others doing the same event. This is not to say that the individual's fitness relative to a previous benchmark they set for themself isn't exceptionally high or improved; it's just that relative to the field, that person is less fit than someone who went faster (eliminating mechanicals only--execution errors are related to one's inherent fitness and cannot be discounted from their effect on finishing time).
So person A, who is 25 years old and goes 4:45 in a HIM, is more fit than me, person B who is 49 years old and goes 5:48. Doesn't matter that person A is so much younger, they are more fit. It is unusual, at least in recorded history, for many 49-year old women to go that fast in a HIM. Now what about person C who is also a 49-year old woman and goes 6:30 in that same race? She is less fit than me and person A.
Easy enough, right?
Now who is the healthiest? We would have to take into account many, many factors, like routine blood tests, weight, cardiovascular and other testing. How often do these individuals get sick in the course of a year? How often are they injured? Are they able to perform well at their jobs? Are they happy? Are they fully functioning members of society? Are they vital? Do they have love in their lives?
You wouldn't make a statement that whoever trains the most is the healthiest, would you? In fact, I think that the less a person trains to achieve the same overall time is probably the healthiest! Now that doesn't mean the finishing time they are seeking is a "healthy" number; rather it means that the time taken away from the rest of their life has been minimized relative to that goal.
Which is better? Health or fitness? I think many endurance freaks automatically think that fitness implies health and that more is better. More might be better from our mind's desire for progressively bigger endurance tests or faster times, but it doesn't imply we are getting any healthier as a result. We might think we feel better when we have reached a training peak in anticipation of a big event, but I think that feeling is primarily mental. Certainly once we start to taper, our bodies go through all sorts of issues in reconciling the sudden drop in training volume, and of course, our minds aren't far behind. I think it's our bodies trying to get back to that equilibrium point of health. Sure we might have needed to train 10-20 hours per week to achieve the level of fitness to reach our time or distance goal, but our bodies are smart enough to know that we don't really need to do that much for health!
There are many people for whom the adoption of a more active lifestyle leads them down the path to better health, and this is a wonderful thing. But it's important to keep perspective that if what you are seeking is health that this should give you pause along the way to consider what you are doing and why, and how you can keep the scales tipped more towards health rather than just pure fitness.
For example, I seem to want to run. I am still not sure how much I actually enjoy it, for it can be difficult to separate the desire for the endorphins and the ability to eat more from the actual doing of the running, but I do know that because I am missing a good bit of cartilage in one of my knees that any excess weight that I carry is just adding insult to injury, and so if I intend to keep running for whatever reasons, that I should keep weight off my frame. The amount of running I do may or may not be considered excessive and conducive or even destructive to my health, but at least I think I'm minimizing the impact by keeping my weight down.
There has also been a good bit of obesity and Type II diabetes on my mom's side of the family, and in respect and fear of both, I am committed to keeping my weight down, my intake of fat to a minimum, and do my best to limit my intake of sugars outside of training and recovery nutrition.
Another example is sleep. For now, at least, I like to train a lot in my effort to get faster at the 1/2 and full Ironman distances (and anything shorter, truth be told!). But I recognize the need to be able to recover from the training as best I can, so I try to average over 8 hours of sleep per night. So I pat myself on the back when I hear of others training at the same level that I am who claim to exist on 5-6 hours of sleep per night. I may or may not be healthier than them, but I feel like I might be. Who can really say?
Does being light, eating very little fat and minimal sugars or sleeping a lot make me healthier? My only hope is that it makes me relatively healthier than I would be if I still did the same amount of training but paid no attention to those other things.
Does Ironman or even marathon training (insert any other endurance event that requires, let's say, over 7 hours a week of training to be respectable at it) make a person healthy? Certainly aspects of remodeling your life in order to fit in the training can lead to greater health. But now let's assume that we have a person who is training 10+ hours per week, sleeping seemingly a good amount, has a healthy weight, gets a regular annual checkup including the standard indicators of health, has a happy family and social life, and is not a substance abuser. And we have another person, same characteristics, except that they only exercise 5-7 hours per week. Who is healthier? Without doing some extensive testing, we don't know. And by extensive, I mean both physical and psychological!
I believe that the person who is exercising less is probably healthier. Why? For one that person needs to eat less food. While are bodies are pretty good at keeping up with whatever caloric demands we place on them, digestion is work, and it creates a lot of toxins, so I think that less is more.
But who is to say when the full picture of health is inspected that some of these "more is better" people (myself included, at least temporarily) wouldn't be as happy doing something else or less of whatever it is they are doing? Like I said in my previous post, if you want to be really good at ANYTHING, it takes intense desire and commitment. To tell a person to set their sights low just because it may not be in their best health interests, is, well, not currently in my vocabulary.
The point of this discussion is that it is important to periodically step back, look at yourself and what you are doing (even if it's not endurance sports), and figure out whether there's a way you can keep doing it but be more healthy doing it. If there is, JUST DO IT!
I know--I am one to talk. I did an Ironman with a sinus infections. But I have also DNF'ed Ironman races twice, and both times, I felt my health was in imminent danger. And I'm learning to just stop it all when I'm feeling under the weather. I no longer buy into this "above the neck, go ahead" crap. I can miss several days of training and come out OK.
After all, this is just a hobby! I really enjoy being fit--correction, hyper-fit, but I enjoy just being healthy even more.
But I digress. Herein I present more ruminations on the endurance life.
Premise: Triathlon training and racing can be part of a healthy lifestyle, or it can be used to push one's boundaries of fitness only, which may or may not be part of a healthy lifestyle.
Definitions (credit to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
- Fit (adjective) 1) : adapted to an end or design : suitable by nature or by art (2) : adapted to the environment so as to be capable of surviving
- Healthy (adjective) 1 : enjoying health and vigor of body, mind, or spirit (implies full strength and vigor as well as freedom from signs of disease)
Discussion
Here is some interesting reading on endurance sports and health: http://www.arthurdevany.com/archives/endurance_training_death_injury_and_risk/index.html
One's triathlon fitness is a pretty easy thing to measure--the ability to complete a given race distance in a given time. The faster the time, the more fit you are relative to everyone else in that race. One can argue that the ability to complete a triathlon under normal cutoff rules (let's say 2 hours for a sprint; 4 hours for Olympic distance; 8 for 1/2 Ironman and 17 for Ironman) implies a high level of fitness; although we've all heard stories about people completing the distances on little to no actual training. Now, depending on how much under those cutoffs a person goes would appear to be a fair indicator of one's fitness compared to others doing the same event. This is not to say that the individual's fitness relative to a previous benchmark they set for themself isn't exceptionally high or improved; it's just that relative to the field, that person is less fit than someone who went faster (eliminating mechanicals only--execution errors are related to one's inherent fitness and cannot be discounted from their effect on finishing time).
So person A, who is 25 years old and goes 4:45 in a HIM, is more fit than me, person B who is 49 years old and goes 5:48. Doesn't matter that person A is so much younger, they are more fit. It is unusual, at least in recorded history, for many 49-year old women to go that fast in a HIM. Now what about person C who is also a 49-year old woman and goes 6:30 in that same race? She is less fit than me and person A.
Easy enough, right?
Now who is the healthiest? We would have to take into account many, many factors, like routine blood tests, weight, cardiovascular and other testing. How often do these individuals get sick in the course of a year? How often are they injured? Are they able to perform well at their jobs? Are they happy? Are they fully functioning members of society? Are they vital? Do they have love in their lives?
You wouldn't make a statement that whoever trains the most is the healthiest, would you? In fact, I think that the less a person trains to achieve the same overall time is probably the healthiest! Now that doesn't mean the finishing time they are seeking is a "healthy" number; rather it means that the time taken away from the rest of their life has been minimized relative to that goal.
Which is better? Health or fitness? I think many endurance freaks automatically think that fitness implies health and that more is better. More might be better from our mind's desire for progressively bigger endurance tests or faster times, but it doesn't imply we are getting any healthier as a result. We might think we feel better when we have reached a training peak in anticipation of a big event, but I think that feeling is primarily mental. Certainly once we start to taper, our bodies go through all sorts of issues in reconciling the sudden drop in training volume, and of course, our minds aren't far behind. I think it's our bodies trying to get back to that equilibrium point of health. Sure we might have needed to train 10-20 hours per week to achieve the level of fitness to reach our time or distance goal, but our bodies are smart enough to know that we don't really need to do that much for health!
There are many people for whom the adoption of a more active lifestyle leads them down the path to better health, and this is a wonderful thing. But it's important to keep perspective that if what you are seeking is health that this should give you pause along the way to consider what you are doing and why, and how you can keep the scales tipped more towards health rather than just pure fitness.
For example, I seem to want to run. I am still not sure how much I actually enjoy it, for it can be difficult to separate the desire for the endorphins and the ability to eat more from the actual doing of the running, but I do know that because I am missing a good bit of cartilage in one of my knees that any excess weight that I carry is just adding insult to injury, and so if I intend to keep running for whatever reasons, that I should keep weight off my frame. The amount of running I do may or may not be considered excessive and conducive or even destructive to my health, but at least I think I'm minimizing the impact by keeping my weight down.
There has also been a good bit of obesity and Type II diabetes on my mom's side of the family, and in respect and fear of both, I am committed to keeping my weight down, my intake of fat to a minimum, and do my best to limit my intake of sugars outside of training and recovery nutrition.
Another example is sleep. For now, at least, I like to train a lot in my effort to get faster at the 1/2 and full Ironman distances (and anything shorter, truth be told!). But I recognize the need to be able to recover from the training as best I can, so I try to average over 8 hours of sleep per night. So I pat myself on the back when I hear of others training at the same level that I am who claim to exist on 5-6 hours of sleep per night. I may or may not be healthier than them, but I feel like I might be. Who can really say?
Does being light, eating very little fat and minimal sugars or sleeping a lot make me healthier? My only hope is that it makes me relatively healthier than I would be if I still did the same amount of training but paid no attention to those other things.
Does Ironman or even marathon training (insert any other endurance event that requires, let's say, over 7 hours a week of training to be respectable at it) make a person healthy? Certainly aspects of remodeling your life in order to fit in the training can lead to greater health. But now let's assume that we have a person who is training 10+ hours per week, sleeping seemingly a good amount, has a healthy weight, gets a regular annual checkup including the standard indicators of health, has a happy family and social life, and is not a substance abuser. And we have another person, same characteristics, except that they only exercise 5-7 hours per week. Who is healthier? Without doing some extensive testing, we don't know. And by extensive, I mean both physical and psychological!
I believe that the person who is exercising less is probably healthier. Why? For one that person needs to eat less food. While are bodies are pretty good at keeping up with whatever caloric demands we place on them, digestion is work, and it creates a lot of toxins, so I think that less is more.
But who is to say when the full picture of health is inspected that some of these "more is better" people (myself included, at least temporarily) wouldn't be as happy doing something else or less of whatever it is they are doing? Like I said in my previous post, if you want to be really good at ANYTHING, it takes intense desire and commitment. To tell a person to set their sights low just because it may not be in their best health interests, is, well, not currently in my vocabulary.
The point of this discussion is that it is important to periodically step back, look at yourself and what you are doing (even if it's not endurance sports), and figure out whether there's a way you can keep doing it but be more healthy doing it. If there is, JUST DO IT!
I know--I am one to talk. I did an Ironman with a sinus infections. But I have also DNF'ed Ironman races twice, and both times, I felt my health was in imminent danger. And I'm learning to just stop it all when I'm feeling under the weather. I no longer buy into this "above the neck, go ahead" crap. I can miss several days of training and come out OK.
After all, this is just a hobby! I really enjoy being fit--correction, hyper-fit, but I enjoy just being healthy even more.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Damn it, I'm sick
I picked something up sometime in the last week or so. On Thursday, when I managed to complete Day 7 of 10 days straight of running and Brick #3, my bike power was a little off, but I ran fine. I had a headache earlier in the day which I attributed to work, but turns out it was an early warning sign. My throat was slightly scratchy, too.
On Friday, I got up early to hit the pool, but something just didn't feel right. My throat was a little scratchier, I had the slightest dry cough, and I felt a bit tired, despite plenty of sleep. I put off going to the pool, and in retrospect, that was a good idea, because as the day wore on, I felt worse and worse. So I had to skip my run as well. I've learned that days off are good for me, and I'd rather nip this in the bud than have it develop into something worse.
Yesterday I felt like total crap, and managed to do a few things around the house in the morning before I was relegated to bed for the rest of the day. I felt weak, like someone was clamping down on my head, and I had a very slight temperature. My normal temperature is 97 or so, and it was up to 98.3. I could also feel some of my lymph glands on the left side of my neck. I just hoped things wouldn't get worse. So I rested, drank lots of fluids, and took some Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, but only a half dose at a time, to ease some of my symptoms.
Today I awoke feeling better, but just better than yesterday, still a bit worse than Friday. So I am not doing any training again. But I think I can make it to the grocery store and do a bit more around the house, as long as I won't be tiring myself out by running for 2 hours! Depending on how I feel tomorrow, I may do a 1:30 run just to get closer to back on track. Or not. We shall see.
Anyway, I've been reading some ongoing rants on Slowtwitch.com forum regarding Ironman, what it "means," whether the cutoff time should be shortened, and how the presence of fat and slower people doing it somehow diminishes the accomplishment of those who aren't.
Here are my thoughts: I no longer think Ironman is that big of a deal. When I did my first one, I could not possibly know how it would feel, no matter how much or how little training I had done. When I finished it, I was like, WTF??? Some people say they have a spiritual experience when they finish their first one. To me, it was just more hard work piled on a ton of hard work I did in the lead up to the race. A few weeks later, though, I suppose I was a little proud of myself, mostly for having made it that far and having been stupid enough to spend ALL DAY doing something like that. I only "made" the cutoff by 1 hour and 1 minute, so if the cutoff was, let's say 13 hours, I would have been declared DNF the very first time. Would I have even tried if there was a 13-hour cutoff? I don't know. My then coach told me it was too soon to be doing an Ironman anyway. I still haven't gone under 13 hours. But I'm still trying.
Since that time, I've had happy finishes, sad finishes and DNF's, and still each time I think that I must have a problem if I need to go through all that to feel good about myself. Well, I don't. I feel good about myself anyway. Ironman has just been a vehicle for me to exploit a certain level of fitness that I have been able to achieve over a period of many years. It could have been something different, but it happens to work for me. Doing Ironman doesn't make me better than anyone else. Hell, I'd be happy to just be a fast runner, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon! So it is just a label. I'd rather be known as "Sheila that really fit lady" than "Sheila that Ironman person." The example I try to set for others is fitness and health, not that you need to work out 13 hours a week to achieve it!
This does not mean that I don't think that I and others work extremely hard at training and all the other little things that go into making it to the start line, and then finishing the event, despite weather, mechanical issues, etc. It is just that I truly believe that Ironman is well within the reach of many people to do. I was kinda fat and well out of my league when I did my first one, but hey, I finished. Just because people choose not to do Ironman doesn't make it any more laudable a goal, than say, raising children or getting a Masters degree or PhD. I have not done any of those things, yet I look at people who have with tremendous respect. Some people choose to train as little as 6-8 hours a week and manage to complete an Ironman; some go 10-12, and some go way beyond in their quest for a goal time. I think the fact that the race has a 17-hour cutoff is what makes it so accessible. Because you CAN complete the thing on minimal training, and you CAN complete the thing without looking like the "typical" Ironman triathlete who is very lean. Been there, done that. I am still slow at Ironman. There, I said it!
I suppose for some of the really fast people this diminishes their "achievement." So be it. If you want to be in a sport where you absolutely HAVE to be thin and/or fast, try gymnastics. You won't see any fat people there. How about pole-vaulting? Same deal. Pretty tough to be good at it if you weigh 250 lbs. So why are there so many people upset that seemingly fat, out of shape and/or slow people can complete an Ironman (or a marathon, for that matter)? I don't know. Face it, it's just a hobby. It's a hobby that lets anyone in. There are no qualifications. Wasn't it Groucho Marx who said he didn't want to be a member of any club that wanted him in it?
Ironman isn't that hard. What makes it seem hard, I think, is that to be truly good at it (insert your own time definition here), you have to train your ass off, and most people with "normal" full-time jobs and families can't make 25+ hours in a week to do that. Some people get lucky by having the right parents or having started on all 3 sports when they were 5 years old and are able to get to the near-elite level with less training than that (or whatever the "real" number is that guarantees you to be super-fast), but most of us just don't have that much time. Or desire. So we get what we can get with the amount of time we can spend training, the parents we were given and the time we have or are willing to spend training. Maybe that gets you a 17-hour finish. Maybe that gets you to 11 hours. Maybe it does or doesn't get you a Kona slot. Great! Once I retire, do you think I want to spend 25 hours a week training for triathlon? Um...no. There are too many other things I'd like to do, so I don't think you'll see me training any more once I don't have a full-time job.
Now read what I just said and put it in the context of some other skill or achievement where to be REALLY good at it, it needs to be more or less like a full-time job. There are a ton of things in life that are like that! I can play the piano, but if I had ever dreamed of being a concert pianist, I would have needed the desire and commitment to practice for much more than the 30 minutes to an hour per day that I actually spent. But, unlike Ironman triathlon where all comers are welcome and have a fighting chance because of the 17-hour cutoff, I would be laughed out of an audition if I were to show up and play something now. But if I want to play for myself, hey, I can do that, and I can even play for my dad, who thinks I'm great.
So I think the deal with folks who are upset about fat and/or slow people doing Ironman is that they are upset that it's just a hobby. IT'S A HOBBY! Just because you finish an Ironman, you don't get some special professional designation like Dr. It's like a bunch of people who build model airplanes getting together at a convention or something. A bunch of people who enjoy doing the same thing. Only the airplane hobbyists probably don't try and set records for the length of their get togethers. But it is the same thing.
Ironman has become mainstream. They mentioned it on Grey's Anatomy (actually this week was the second time, I'm told). So if you are looking to be viewed as elite just because you do Ironman, I have news for you--there are plenty of us. There are much more difficult sports to do than Ironman that I can think of--double, triple, deca-Ironman races, 100-mile+ running races, multi-day adventure races, etc. There's always something harder to do than what you're doing now. Oh--go and quote how only point-oh-whatever percent of the population has completed an Ironman. Same is true for a lot of other things. If you're in the game for separateness, good for you.
So to me, Ironman isn't a way to separate myself from others. It's just a vehicle for physical fitness, and I may jump off the Ironman train next year. Do I want to do well at it? Of course. I work very hard in training and many times it isn't fun--it's just work. But I know that being fit and healthy is work, and so I keep doing it. But I could also do much less and still be very fit and healthy and that is a good thing, too.
If you feel special because you do Ironman, that's fine. Or because your eyes are 2 different colors. Or because you are (insert personal unique physical characteristic here). I am a pretty good badminton player. On a good day. With minimal training. Unfortunately, I don't have any participation medals or T-shirts that shout it out. Which is fine by me.
On Friday, I got up early to hit the pool, but something just didn't feel right. My throat was a little scratchier, I had the slightest dry cough, and I felt a bit tired, despite plenty of sleep. I put off going to the pool, and in retrospect, that was a good idea, because as the day wore on, I felt worse and worse. So I had to skip my run as well. I've learned that days off are good for me, and I'd rather nip this in the bud than have it develop into something worse.
Yesterday I felt like total crap, and managed to do a few things around the house in the morning before I was relegated to bed for the rest of the day. I felt weak, like someone was clamping down on my head, and I had a very slight temperature. My normal temperature is 97 or so, and it was up to 98.3. I could also feel some of my lymph glands on the left side of my neck. I just hoped things wouldn't get worse. So I rested, drank lots of fluids, and took some Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, but only a half dose at a time, to ease some of my symptoms.
Today I awoke feeling better, but just better than yesterday, still a bit worse than Friday. So I am not doing any training again. But I think I can make it to the grocery store and do a bit more around the house, as long as I won't be tiring myself out by running for 2 hours! Depending on how I feel tomorrow, I may do a 1:30 run just to get closer to back on track. Or not. We shall see.
Anyway, I've been reading some ongoing rants on Slowtwitch.com forum regarding Ironman, what it "means," whether the cutoff time should be shortened, and how the presence of fat and slower people doing it somehow diminishes the accomplishment of those who aren't.
Here are my thoughts: I no longer think Ironman is that big of a deal. When I did my first one, I could not possibly know how it would feel, no matter how much or how little training I had done. When I finished it, I was like, WTF??? Some people say they have a spiritual experience when they finish their first one. To me, it was just more hard work piled on a ton of hard work I did in the lead up to the race. A few weeks later, though, I suppose I was a little proud of myself, mostly for having made it that far and having been stupid enough to spend ALL DAY doing something like that. I only "made" the cutoff by 1 hour and 1 minute, so if the cutoff was, let's say 13 hours, I would have been declared DNF the very first time. Would I have even tried if there was a 13-hour cutoff? I don't know. My then coach told me it was too soon to be doing an Ironman anyway. I still haven't gone under 13 hours. But I'm still trying.
Since that time, I've had happy finishes, sad finishes and DNF's, and still each time I think that I must have a problem if I need to go through all that to feel good about myself. Well, I don't. I feel good about myself anyway. Ironman has just been a vehicle for me to exploit a certain level of fitness that I have been able to achieve over a period of many years. It could have been something different, but it happens to work for me. Doing Ironman doesn't make me better than anyone else. Hell, I'd be happy to just be a fast runner, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon! So it is just a label. I'd rather be known as "Sheila that really fit lady" than "Sheila that Ironman person." The example I try to set for others is fitness and health, not that you need to work out 13 hours a week to achieve it!
This does not mean that I don't think that I and others work extremely hard at training and all the other little things that go into making it to the start line, and then finishing the event, despite weather, mechanical issues, etc. It is just that I truly believe that Ironman is well within the reach of many people to do. I was kinda fat and well out of my league when I did my first one, but hey, I finished. Just because people choose not to do Ironman doesn't make it any more laudable a goal, than say, raising children or getting a Masters degree or PhD. I have not done any of those things, yet I look at people who have with tremendous respect. Some people choose to train as little as 6-8 hours a week and manage to complete an Ironman; some go 10-12, and some go way beyond in their quest for a goal time. I think the fact that the race has a 17-hour cutoff is what makes it so accessible. Because you CAN complete the thing on minimal training, and you CAN complete the thing without looking like the "typical" Ironman triathlete who is very lean. Been there, done that. I am still slow at Ironman. There, I said it!
I suppose for some of the really fast people this diminishes their "achievement." So be it. If you want to be in a sport where you absolutely HAVE to be thin and/or fast, try gymnastics. You won't see any fat people there. How about pole-vaulting? Same deal. Pretty tough to be good at it if you weigh 250 lbs. So why are there so many people upset that seemingly fat, out of shape and/or slow people can complete an Ironman (or a marathon, for that matter)? I don't know. Face it, it's just a hobby. It's a hobby that lets anyone in. There are no qualifications. Wasn't it Groucho Marx who said he didn't want to be a member of any club that wanted him in it?
Ironman isn't that hard. What makes it seem hard, I think, is that to be truly good at it (insert your own time definition here), you have to train your ass off, and most people with "normal" full-time jobs and families can't make 25+ hours in a week to do that. Some people get lucky by having the right parents or having started on all 3 sports when they were 5 years old and are able to get to the near-elite level with less training than that (or whatever the "real" number is that guarantees you to be super-fast), but most of us just don't have that much time. Or desire. So we get what we can get with the amount of time we can spend training, the parents we were given and the time we have or are willing to spend training. Maybe that gets you a 17-hour finish. Maybe that gets you to 11 hours. Maybe it does or doesn't get you a Kona slot. Great! Once I retire, do you think I want to spend 25 hours a week training for triathlon? Um...no. There are too many other things I'd like to do, so I don't think you'll see me training any more once I don't have a full-time job.
Now read what I just said and put it in the context of some other skill or achievement where to be REALLY good at it, it needs to be more or less like a full-time job. There are a ton of things in life that are like that! I can play the piano, but if I had ever dreamed of being a concert pianist, I would have needed the desire and commitment to practice for much more than the 30 minutes to an hour per day that I actually spent. But, unlike Ironman triathlon where all comers are welcome and have a fighting chance because of the 17-hour cutoff, I would be laughed out of an audition if I were to show up and play something now. But if I want to play for myself, hey, I can do that, and I can even play for my dad, who thinks I'm great.
So I think the deal with folks who are upset about fat and/or slow people doing Ironman is that they are upset that it's just a hobby. IT'S A HOBBY! Just because you finish an Ironman, you don't get some special professional designation like Dr. It's like a bunch of people who build model airplanes getting together at a convention or something. A bunch of people who enjoy doing the same thing. Only the airplane hobbyists probably don't try and set records for the length of their get togethers. But it is the same thing.
Ironman has become mainstream. They mentioned it on Grey's Anatomy (actually this week was the second time, I'm told). So if you are looking to be viewed as elite just because you do Ironman, I have news for you--there are plenty of us. There are much more difficult sports to do than Ironman that I can think of--double, triple, deca-Ironman races, 100-mile+ running races, multi-day adventure races, etc. There's always something harder to do than what you're doing now. Oh--go and quote how only point-oh-whatever percent of the population has completed an Ironman. Same is true for a lot of other things. If you're in the game for separateness, good for you.
So to me, Ironman isn't a way to separate myself from others. It's just a vehicle for physical fitness, and I may jump off the Ironman train next year. Do I want to do well at it? Of course. I work very hard in training and many times it isn't fun--it's just work. But I know that being fit and healthy is work, and so I keep doing it. But I could also do much less and still be very fit and healthy and that is a good thing, too.
If you feel special because you do Ironman, that's fine. Or because your eyes are 2 different colors. Or because you are (insert personal unique physical characteristic here). I am a pretty good badminton player. On a good day. With minimal training. Unfortunately, I don't have any participation medals or T-shirts that shout it out. Which is fine by me.
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