Hat Trick

I trained 3.5 hours Friday, 3.5 hours yesterday, and 3.5 hours today. Doesn't sound like a big deal, huh? When it's part of another 19 hour week in March, it is, to me anyway.

Last weekend I wasn't feeling it, and I think I was shelled from the intensity of the sprint races plus my general training intensity coupled with high volume = needed some rest. I skipped my long swim, and then I skipped my long ride because mentally I just couldn't see being on the trainer for 3 hours. I went and saw Alice in Wonderland in 3D. Loved the movie, but the 3D is just a gimmick and didn't add anything to the movie itself. I managed a long run last Sunday (2:15), even though I should have cut it short, since I was experiencing some referred nerve pain in my right leg. But sometimes I can be stubborn, and I still finished the run, only to feel messed up on Monday.

Monday I did a 3300 yard swim in the morning, and once again I found myself swimming faster than I have in years. One would think that I would get somewhat faster with all the swimming I'm doing, but on any given day, I might be too fatigued from overall training load to swim well. Still, when it happens, it makes me feel pretty good. I lifted later in the day, and this year is the first time in years that I have needed to cut back a little on my strength training for this time of year. Usually by the time I'm at 17+ hours per week, I'm well past my strength build, but this year is different, and I just can't handle some of the usual strength stuff right now because of my training volume. But it's good, and I am still getting about 1.5 hours a week, which is fine and still more than I was doing a year ago.

Tuesday I biked outside on my MTB, Clipless Fuck, for about 1.5 hours. I didn't feel as pathetic on the hills as I thought I would, and I probably rode too hard for my first outdoor ride. Go figure after 5 months of indoor riding!

Wednesday was an easy "form" (i.e., mostly drills) swim, and then later on I ran outdoors. Instead of doing the scheduled track workout (which I was afraid to do because of the condition of my right glutes), I just thought I'd run for an hour and see how far I got. Well this being the first outdoor run since Goofy Challenge and it including my local decent hills, I did not have high expectations. But turns out I have picked up some speed, although my legs did not appreciate the concrete one bit. My glutes felt worse afterward, and it was a combination of the pavement and speed.

Thursday morning I knew I shouldn't run at all so instead I walked for about :45. Even walking at this point will help me acclimate to the concrete and asphalt, but man, my anterior tib muscles hated it!

Friday I managed to swim 8200 yards before work, and it appears my body is adapting to these long swims in terms of my ability to stay awake and coherent afterward. I consumed all my anticipated nutrition and fluid during it, which I am sure played a big part, plus I didn't really push the pace. Doing these really long swims indoors is truly a grind. Maybe if I'd been swimming since I was 10, it wouldn't be so bad, but that's not the case, and a 2:45 workout before work is hard even if it's biking or running. But the added suckitude from these long swims is that I have all this crap oozing from my eyes for hours afterwards, not to mention the goggle marks, giving me the look of an accident victim. Swimming in and breathing chlorine for that long is surely not healthy, but at least I don't feel sick like I used to after these swims.

I even managed to go for another :45 walk later in the day, and my suspicion is that doing something else on these long swim days is a good idea, if for nothing else than to force my body to exhume all the chlorine from my pores.

Yesterday I did do my 3-hour trainer ride, and managed some decent power, and at one point thought I might have done well in a 1/2 Ironman that day. I know--wishful thinking! It was raining and cold outside, so for my :30 run, I ended up at the Y but used the elliptical trainer, again trying to be kind to my tight ass. But of course I cranked up the level and did some sort of hill workout. When I got off the thing, it felt close to as if I had run, and my legs were appropriately wobbly. After that I had to get some food in me, go grocery shopping, get waxed, cook dinner, eat, and I was asleep by 9PM (I had already set my clocks ahead).

No alarm this morning, and I slept in until 7:30. I am actually happy that the mornings are going to be dark for awhile, because I will wake up with the sun. Today I had a 2:30 run scheduled, and had no idea whether I could/should run at all. Worse case scenario was that I would do it all on the elliptical, which I despise more than a treadmill. But I wanted to stay indoors since it would mean controlling my speed and then I wanted to get in a 1/2 hour cool down swim afterward.

Waking up so late and needing to be running by 9 meant I just got up and started doing stuff and getting my workout gear together. Usually I would have done that the night before, but I just ran out of time yesterday.

I was on the treadmill at 9:10, and suddenly an amazing idea came to me--maybe if I didn't try and run my usual pace, I would be OK. So that's what I did, and I ran slower today than I have since...well, since North Face last October, but it was the right thing to do. Usually I do progressive long runs, but today was just about putting in the time. I kept wondering when things would hurt to the point where I needed to abandon ship for the elliptical, but that never happened. So I ran for 2:30 and then walked for :30, since I wanted a total of 3 hours on my feet today. I did stretch about every 10 minutes or so, and that coupled with an awareness of the position of my right foot and also noticing that I have some amazing trigger points in my lower right abs that I'd poke at every so often (which probably looked strange) allowed me to run the whole time.

Plus I had a nice 20 or so minute conversation with someone I know who was so uplifting to talk to. He gets what I'm putting myself through in the name of a goal and that it is not much fun most of the time, and I even shared my thoughts of wanting to throw in the towel with him. Instead of the usual crap like "well if it's not fun then don't do it" or "maybe you should just rest for a few weeks," he just told me not to give up and keep going, and that he knew that once I committed to something, I would do everything I needed to do. That was something I needed to hear today!

I got in about :20 of swimming, and it felt good.

And now onto some mental stuff...

My Dad's estate is officially closed. It happened a few weeks ago. Coincidence that I am experiencing some nerve pain probably originating in my low back? Coincidence that last weekend I had to shut things down? No. I had wondered for months how I would feel when this "closure" occurred, and the jury is still out. I am not feeling too much delayed grief, although if I read or hear about someone else experiencing death of a loved one, it does make me cry. I also have to come to terms with losing relationships with 3 of my siblings. It makes me sad to have lost first Mom in 2006, then Dad in 2007, and now 3 other family members. And while all of this was going on, I was trying to be a good friend to several friends and acquaintances going through their own life crises, only to be tossed aside by several of them. I feel like I have lost so many people that I loved with all my heart, and now I am trying to do something all by myself that is harder than anything I've ever done, and that is the struggle I have right now.

It is easy to do hard things when you have your support network around you, but it's hard when your support network abandons you. I'm not saying that I have zero support network, it is just that these were people very special to me, some of whom I think "got" me more than anyone else in my life ever has. So of course all of this has got me thinking that it's time to make some changes, time to seek out some new people that will "get" me and maybe even appreciate me. But I committed to do something hard and the reality is that I don't have the time to seek out new relationships right now. And that is the conundrum, the thing that every few days, surfaces in my head and makes me think maybe I can't do this, that maybe I am too weak for it.

And then a small good thing happens. Friday before my long swim, I read this post by David Goggins, who is a person I hugely admire and relate to in certain ways. There are people out there who do the hard things no matter what. It is just their nature. And it made me think who the fuck am I to give up on something I made a commitment to, just because right now it's hard for me because I am experiencing a shitload of loss and at a crossroad in my life where maybe it's going to be time to once again take stock, toss out more stuff (and even people) that does me no good and maybe even put aspects of my life on hold while I work towards something which I am not quite sure why I am doing but that I just know I need to do.

So I make a remark about Goggins and his post on Facebook and get some of the usual blather remarks about how I can't possibly HATE my long swims because they are, after all, in support of the big goal. I just state how *I* feel, how *I* experience my life, and that is all that Goggins is doing. Maybe your experience of life is different, but hey, neither him nor I am saying that the way that we have chosen is better or worse than someone else's way. Don't tell me how I am supposed to feel, and I won't tell you. Whatever is going on inside your head is none of my business.

I do not equate happiness with fun. While there are aspects of my training that are from time to time fun, at this point, it is all work. Fitness is work! Here is another viewpoint by a person that I identify with. I do know people who need to be constantly entertained--if they aren't on vacation, engaged in the hoopla of a big event, watching something exciting on TV, doing a group workout (for motivation, you know) or trying out the latest fitness fad, they just aren't "happy." That is OK. I am not like that. I like to plan the work, thinking about what's possible at the culmination of it all. But the reality is that the middle part is the hardest. Doing the work. Planning is fun! Racing is fun! Training for Ironman was sometimes fun. Achieving a new fitness benchmark is satisfying. But it's work, and not fun.

Why do I want to do the hard thing? Maybe in a prior life I would have chosen an occupation that was harder than what I do now. I've been told I would make a good policeman, lawyer and assorted other occupations. Maybe I want to do hard physical things because I wimped out on the occupation thing. For me, doing hard physical things helps me to cope with doing hard mental things. And yet I don't feel that what I am doing is really that hard. It is just hard NOW. Thing is, whatever you are doing that you are experiencing as hard is no longer hard once you've transcended it, right? Non-emotional things, anyway. Grief and loss of someone's love cannot be trained for, but I think you can shorten your acceptance period.

OK now back to some physical stuff. You'd think that with the generally good physical condition I was in before I embarked on this Ultraman stuff that I would have zero issues with my body, but you would be wrong. I am asking my body to do stuff it's never done, and even if I religiously stretch 1/2 hour every day, sleep tons and eat right, I'm still a working stiff trying to fit it all in (and more of it) and not crack. If I could do my training every day and then lay down or even nap for a few hours afterward, that would be great. If my meals would magically show up in front of me 2 or 3 times a day, that would be great. If I could outsource everything but my actual job and the training, showering, eating and sleeping, it would be Nirvana! But I can't, so I find whatever little things will help me to deal with my limited time and resources. So whenever I find a new way to save time, I'm a happy camper. Losing an hour of time today was truly crushing, but in the end the time I lost was relaxation time. Sleep is not something I will sacrifice.

I'm signed up for a 1/2 marathon next Sunday. Right now I'm not sure if I can do it or not. I am just taking this ass tightness one day at a time. I certainly have the endurance for it. Actually today I felt like I could have run an entire marathon, and I know that it wouldn't have been hard. When I have thoughts like that, I know that my fitness is progressing. My benchmark used to be feeling like I could do a 1/2 Ironman at the drop of a hat. Now it's an Ironman. It would have been a bit rough today, but I could have gotten through it. I hope that as the days and weeks go by, I feel like that more and more.

Everyone go and be who you are, without excuses, and do not feel you have to answer the question "why." Except to yourself.