Accountability

Iron Man and Tiny Spock who held me accountable during the first part of today's long run

I am blessed to know many outstanding athletes--mostly age groupers, but I count among my acquaintances a few pros as well.  The primary attribute they all share is accountability--to themselves, to their coaches/mentors (if they have one), and to their own athletes.

I have mentored many people, and right now consider myself a mentor to 3 athletes, and I am formally coaching another.  Of my mentees, one is doing another Ironman imminently, one is beginning training for his 2nd Ironman, and another is recovering from an injury but is hoping to get in a first Ironman or close to the distance next year.  All three of them know not to second guess my advice, and if I ask any of them about how their training is progressing, I get the God honest truth.  What paces/power are they doing things at, what is their nutrition plan and are they doing it, are they recovering, are they hitting the targets or not.

Right now, I am my own coach, so I am only accountable to ME, but it really helps me when I have others who feel accountable to me, because it makes me feel accountable to THEM.  Why? Because I feel like I need to show them that I take my own medicine, and that the relationships go both ways.

The guy I'm coaching is a pure joy for me to work with.  Without me asking, he tells me how the workouts FEEL and if he's hitting targets and asks me if he can move workouts around.  He's a smart guy who raced bikes Cat 1 in college, so it's a little comical that I am showing him how to bike train now.  But it's triathlon training, not bike racing. He's going to turn into a beast to be reckoned with at triathlon, and I may even need to cut him loose next year and insist he get a better coach!  It is truly wonderful for me to work with such a talented person, as it inspires me to work hard and reinforces my knowledge of the training and racing process.  Thanks, Brad!

The same is true of the 3 guys I am mentoring.  Many of my training/racing platitudes (many of which have come from my own past coaches) come to mind just at the right times, and I find them spouting them back at me which is a real compliment, and I think I'm done reminding them where they came from!  Thanks, Carl, Maz and Sol!

I have trouble relating to people who aren't accountable to themselves about their training.  That behavior makes for poor racing, injury and sets a bad example for other athletes.  I am typically quite brash with such people whether or not they accept my opinion.

But luckily, such people are the minority in my circle of friends, since accountability is intimately connected with integrity, and if you notice, integrity is in my tagline for this blog.

Today, Iron Man and Tiny Spock (I just recently acquired Tiny Spock) held me accountable while I did the first hour of my long run on my treadmill, Hal.  In this case, holding me accountable meant I would run the correct paces for my training zones based on my current VDOT, even if I felt like running faster.  So for that first hour, I covered only 6.35 miles in an hour, where the first 30' were in Zone 1, 20' in Zone 2, and then 10' in Zone 4.

Then I went outdoors to complete the workout, and covered 6 miles in 53:40, or 8:57 pace, and the gist of that time was to be 5' Zone 2, 10' Zone 4, 5' Zone 2, 15' Zone 3 and 15' Zone 2. I went a little further out before I headed back since I wasn't sure how fast I'd run home, which is why I ended up going over 50'.  No worries, my Zone 4 stuff outside was at a fast clip, and I slowed down appropriately after it.

I had a slight miss on my run nutrition today.  Since it appears I am running faster than I did 4 years ago and my thyroid is working properly again, that means I need more calories while I run.  I wasn't too far off today, but I felt hungry when I was about 10.5 miles in.  I had plenty of fluids, though.  So noted in my training log, and I will do better on next week's long run.

Accountability...Integrity...Honesty...if you don't have those things, keep away from me!

I Like to Watch

That's John on the left, a little Crackhead in the center and Maz on the right

On Sunday, I'd agreed to drive to my friend Mark's (aka Maz) house with Clipless Fuck (my MTB's name in case you are new to my blog) inside so we could ride together (such as it is since Maz has a BMC Time Machine) to the Naperville sprint tri.  Maz was competing (as was John, who I will appropriate as my friend now, too, since I've gone riding with him) despite a lingering foot injury that has knocked him out of running for quite some time. I am Maz's triathlon mentor, although he calls me his "tri Mom," even though I am NOT old enough to be his mother!  It's more like he's my younger brother, but I digress.

Maz tried to dissuade me from showing up for a few reasons:

1. I'd have done a 1/2 NothingMan the day before and might not want to wake up at 0 dark thirty to watch someone else race
2. He didn't want me to watch him suck on the run
3. He claims he won't talk to anyone on a race day (aka "game face"), so I'd be yakking to myself.

Well, I called him Sunday when I was 33 miles into my NothingMan ride and told him I'd show up with CF in tow and we would ride to the race together and I would hang out and do god knows what--Sunday was a scheduled rest day for me so what the fuck else would I be doing?  I was actually pretty excited Sunday morning, and it felt like I was getting ready for another race.  I packed my running shoes, because for some reason I thought I'd change into them and run around.  That would have been a bad idea.  I also brought a bottle of water and my camera.

I get to Maz's house and he is smiling! 

Now, Maz is generally not a surly human being, but with all the crap he's been through with his injury and rehab, he hasn't exactly been the most pleasant person to be around, and yet I've continued to pester him about this and that.  And believe it or not, it was ME who told him he should do this race in order to boost his spirits.  It was also ME who got after him when he was racing all the time and I told him he'd end up injured, but back then he was a medal whore and I couldn't get through to him.

We rode to the race together and I wish there were pics of me on CF next to Maz on the BMC.  Of course, I had to pedal like crazy to try and keep up with him barely spinning his pedals, but I did the best I could.

I am not sure who was talking the most on that short ride. Maz had told me it was about 1.5 miles, but it was actually 2.2, and I pointed this out to him since I really didn't need any exercise at that point. 

Maz went into transition, and then I didn't see him until he came out of the water, at which point I started the timer on my watch since I knew about how long it would take him to do the bike.  I had already snapped a bunch of pics (they are all on Facebook) of various people in transition and coming out of the swim, and of course I enjoyed myself yelling at them.  My favorite was a young man (I'm guessing 19) in a really cute Speedo and as he came out of the water I yelled, "GOOD JOB SEXY MAN!"  This, of course, got his attention and a big smile on his face.

Next I hung out at the bike in and got a bunch of pics and recognized a few people I know.  I kept getting asked why I wasn't racing, seeing as how I'd worn an IMLP windbreaker and had my Kona sling bag on.  I could have done the race, but I would be in a big, huge overtraining hole right about now.

Luckily, I got Maz coming back into transition, and then I was like shit I need to hustle to get him at the run out.  Which I did, and I don't know what he was thinking about what I would be doing at the race, but my intent was to follow him on the run as much as possible and deliver words of "encouragement."  By encouragement, I mean, for example, "You know the drill. Harden the Fuck Up!"  I picked on a few racers who were slacking and spotted some other people I know and snapped pics while riding the bike!  I was pretty pleased with myself at my ability to ride and shoot and not fall off the bike and not get hit by a car, because parts of the run course were cordoned off with traffic cones so cars could get by and I had to keep checking where the fuck I was supposed to ride, because I didn't want to interfere with the racers.

At one point, I heard Maz yell out to John, and I knew who it was, so I looped back to get some pics of him.  I believe John was both surprised and alarmed to see me.  We haven't known each other very long, but I'm pretty sure John knows I don't suffer slacking from people.  He told me after the race that he had wanted to walk at that point but couldn't because there I was during his final push.

The finish chute was such that I couldn't ride to the end of the run course, and I missed Maz coming into the finish.  Fuck.  Oh well, I snapped a few pics of others finishing and enjoyed yelling at people to pick it up for the final sprint.

I located Maz in transition and asked him what he wanted to do, and we decided to hang out in the finisher area for a bit.  I told Maz I was starving and could he get me something to eat?  There had been food for sale before the race began, but I was too busy taking pics and getting excited for everyone.  I did manage to make time to pee in a bush, however.  I also ended up peeing next to some trees about 1 mile into the run course and didn't care if anyone saw.

Maz brought me 4 fun-size Snickers bars.  I am sure my face lit up and my mouth probably opened up as big as the Grand Canyon to eat the first one.  Then the second.  I didn't honestly think I'd eat all 4, but yep, I did and was still hungry.  John came by and we got some more snaps, also Jason.

Jason, John and Maz

Maz and I rode back to his house, we chatted for a bit, and then I drove home to begin my REAL refueling from Saturday's NothingMan.  I was tired (I ended up biking 12 miles WTF I could have just done the stupid race), and relaxed and uploaded almost 80 pics and Facebook was all abuzz with people reporting in and many people I don't even know tagged themselves.  I didn't really see professional race photogs, so I guess I did my part in capturing people!  And yelling at them!

I enjoyed the day so much and now I am looking forward to Ironman Wisconsin.  I'll be going up and getting in some training, but also hanging out and doing my professional spectating role.  I know at least 10 people racing, and there are probably another 10 or 15 that I just haven't identified in the participant list.  Only 4 weeks to go!  Typically people spot me when I just hang out at a race--I guess the Crackhead is fairly recognizable.  But I will try and have some surprises in store on race day because that makes it more fun for me, other spectators AND the racers.  So when someone asks me if I am volunteering, I say, "Technically, no, but let's just say I'm a personal volunteer for special people."  I haven't been up to Wisconsin since 2011.  I'm getting my piece of crap car all tuned up and turns out I need new tires, but oh well, it has to be done.

So remember, if you can't race, GO WATCH!!!