The Beatings Will Continue Until Fitness Improves!

The title is, of course, a take on a saying or cartoon that I'm sure you've seen: The beatings will continue until morale improves. And so it goes with fitness. You don't become fit by sitting around doing nothing, and you don't become really fit by going out and doing things the easy way. When you first start out on a path to fitness, JFT (just fucking train) works pretty well. But there comes a times when you have to sweat the details and change/increase the stimulus in order to see gains. If you ever read the Slowtwitch forums (which are soap opera, in and of themselves), you will see regular threads about "more is more" which basically means that in the context of becoming fit, the answer to the question "how?" is always more of something.

Over the past 7 years, I've been mostly coached, but sometimes I go without, but no matter, I am always learning about what works and what doesn't. The only thing that I know for sure is that I have to work hard to improve. And to work hard, I need to take care of my body as best I can so that it's willing and able to do the hard work. I'm not a monk like some pro triathletes, but I do pretty well compared to many people I know. But I don't hold that against them, as this really is just a hobby, and I happen to take it pretty seriously. Why? Because that's how I am with anything. I'm a little OCD, a little bipolar (PC term for manic-depressive), cursed with an extremely high IQ, a social klutz, and I get my kicks out of doing things well.

My coach knows this stuff about me, which makes me quite easy to coach, since I am all over the Protestant ethic of hard work for its own sake (although I was actually raised Catholic, but that's another story). Now, even if you do everything right--sleep, nutrition, stress reduction, body composition management, adherence to scheduled training program--it still takes (unless you are genetically gifted which I certainly am not) years to get to the point where you can execute the really hard stuff and not only survive it, but flourish.

I think I'm there, but I can't tell you how many days I'm doing the work and thinking, "What the hell? I'm 50. Should I be able to do all this?" And my answer is yes, because there are women my age who are faster than me. Not that I'm ever going to best them all; it just means there is room for improvement on my end! At some point, I will reach the inevitable maximum potential and my performances will begin to decline. That may already be happening with swimming--either that or I just don't care that much, since I don't have sufficient time (and by that, I mean like 5 hours per week) to dedicate to it. But biking and running--I am getting stronger, fitter, and faster.

This week has been a buzz so far. Yesterday I rode hard for 4:30 (80% of FTP, for those of you who are on the power train; :40 of that was at FTP or higher watts). That's like 1/2 Ironman pace for some people (I can do 1/2 Ironman at about 85% FTP). And then I ran a bit faster than 1/2 marathon pace for 4.5 miles. Today I'm doing the same thing, but only 3:00 on the bike (same brick run, though). Now, people talk about training hard and say they did this or that, but do they know the truth? To me, truth on the bike is watts. I don't wear my HRM any more, because it's not the truth. With watts, either I can hit them or I can't, and when I can't, I don't obsess about why. Truth is, I couldn't do it. But the quality of my workout is going to equal the watts I cranked out--nothing more, nothing less. When you ride by HRM or (ridiculous) pace, it's not the truth. There were periods yesterday where I was going 30MPH, and others where I could only go 16MPH. What's the truth about how hard I was working? It was the same.

Now running. Again, I no longer wear an HRM. It's all about pace. And either I can hold pace, or I can't. Pace will vary depending on how far I'm going or how long I've biked beforehand.

Sometimes I wish I was a lot younger, because I can feel now that I'm at a point where I could really kick some serious butt racing. But there are other rewards for my efforts--I get to ride with guys, I have people asking me to run with them (good runners), and I get a lot of respect, for if nothing else, I look fast. And I usually look like I'm enjoying the work, even while I may be yelling "OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD" going uphill into a 15MPH headwind during a brick run like yesterday or needing to push 110% of FTP watts on the bike. And especially when I'm going the opposite direction of a whole peloton of roadies, going fast, like yesterday, tucked low into the aerobars cranking out some serious wattage.

This fitness doesn't come easily, but I'm happy I have it for whatever "rewards" it might bring. Mostly I just enjoy training when I have to really work at it. Don't get me wrong--every now and then a nice, leisurely bike or run is called for, but those workouts are few and far between. I do stop and smell the proverbial roses. During yesterday's ride (my first of the year in Fermilab, I made 2 nature stops (aside from 2 stops to pee). The first was to inquire as to a group of folks with binoculars looking up at Wilson Hall (the main administrative building). I asked what they were looking at, and they said a peregrine falcon, and did I want to look through the scope? I looked up, clearly saw the bird, and declined the scope. I related that when I used to work downtown Chicago, I once observed a parent peregrine teaching a youngster how to dive. I wished them a happy day, and soldiered on. Later on, I noticed what I thought was a small turtle in the road, attempting to cross. I kept going, but my nature loving self got the best of me and I stopped, went back, and sure enough, it was a baby painted turtle! He might have been run over trying to get to the pond on the other side of the road (there are many ponds in Fermilab--click on the previous link to see all about the nature stuff in there!), so I picked him up, put him in my bike jersey, and transported him as close to the other pond as I could get him. It smelled so nice in there yesterday--lilacs are blooming, there is wild phlox everywhere, and it's just gorgeous. Lucky me, I get to go back there again today!

My bags are nearly packed for Colorado, my yard looks absolutely beautiful (I promise there will be photos once I'm back home on a weekly basis--you wouldn't believe it), and believe it or not, I feel pretty great this morning considering I'm already to 16 training hours through yesterday and I've got 3:40 more to go today.

Have a great Sunday and remember to really see what's in front of you!