As punishment for last weekend's embarassing effort at Sunfish, I've spent this week absolutely beating myself up with workouts... I sure hope it's getting me ready for Heart O' Dixie, which is in 6 days....
Heart O Dixie is an infamous race (sort of) around here... It's one of those "Bucket List" races for a lot of people, or a "Hardness Qualifier" type of race (i.e., if you think you're tough, do HoD and see how tough you are afterwards)... I'd like to say I'm ready, but after last weekend's race, there's no telling...
Here's a recap of this past week's beatings:
Mon: Swim-400 w/u, 400 25drill/25swim, 4x100 kick, 3x400 (descend 1-3), 400 pull, 200 cd
Tue: Brick: Bike-1.5 hr Lake Lurleen loop once (avg was 16.5'ish), 20 min run off the bike in the 9's
Wed: Swim-400 w/u, 15x100 @ 1:45, 300 kick no stops, 600 pull, 200 cd
Run-25 min... switched it up and ran on the treadmill... total was more like 30, and I messed with speed and incline the entire time
Thurs: Run-supposed to do a 5k TT, all tracks locked :(.. Bike-1.5 hr Lake Lurleen loop (avg was 15.6ish--was riding with Shayne)... Could have gone another loop, but Shayne was cooked
Fri: Swim-200 w/u, 1700!, 300 kick with fins, 200 pull, 200 cd... 1700 was supposed to be a 1500, but as this was punishment week, I decided to push it... This was the first mile I've ever swam!
Sat: Brick: Bike-53 mi in 2:50'ish, Run-2.66 mi in 25:56ish
Sun: Run-Shamblin loop @ Lake Lurleen: 6.85 mi, 1:16:39, 11:11 pace (this workout was brutal, all hills, had to walk a little bit!)
I have busted it this week... I'm hoping this pays off at Heart O' Dixie... Any race that describes the run as "7 miles of heat and hills" makes me nervous...
In a serendipitous turn, this quarter's Triatlon Life magazine had a full page article on "Overcoming Disappointment" or something like that... It was pretty cool to actually read what I had been feeling since Sunfish... That good races come and go, but it's what you do after a bad race that seperates you from the rest of the pack... You can dissect the bad race and play out thousands of "what if's", but it does NOTHING to actually make you a stronger, better racer... In fact, there's nothing that can make you stronger and faster except stronger and harder training... and that's what I've tried to do this week... I've really tried to push myself, all in the name of being better prepared (if that's possible) for HoD... I'll be ok on the swim, finish the bike, then hopefully not embarass myself on the run like Sunfish...
I talked to Dad this past week and gave him the Sunfish race report... Told him I wasn't at all happy with how I raced, and that this week was going to be one where I pushed myself to get ready for HoD... He said something that I'm struggling to apply to what I'm doing with triathlon: don't turn this into work, don't turn it into something you dread doing, don't turn this into something that's not fun anymore... I know I shouldn't be so hard on myself about how Sunfish played out--it's one race... But I can't help but feel like it'll follow me for the rest of the season... I want to be faster, but feel like I've sort of plateaued at this point (and I think it's because of a combo of the weather and my current level of fitness--I just can't go as hard as I want to given the unforgiving weather)...
During my run today, which was a demonstration in suffering, I had some "downtime" with myself... This was the first time I had run (what I call) Shamblin Loop, which starts at Mt. Olive Baptist Church and is 6.89 mi (as the crow flies) of hills... I (as usual) started of strong, running in the 9's, but that soon stopped... There's a particularly nasty 0.5 mile climb on Rose Blvd that's stupid hard... I looked down at my Garmin during the climb and my pace was something in the 15's... Stupid! Had to walk a little bit, dry heave a little bit, but I made it... I know that the only way I'll get stronger is to train stronger, and that means hills (ugh)...
The "downtime" came a particularly weak point for me, where I had to stop and walk a little bit up a hill... I was huffing and puffing, legs were destroyed, and I could feel my body just shutting down (this with about 2 miles left to go)... I had to convince myself to keep running, just run as long as I could, but if I needed to stop and walk, do so, but just enough to recover to keep running... It was tough, because I know I'm capable of running 7 miles no problem, hell, I've run a half marathon... The mental battle between knowing what I'm capable of THEN vs. what I'm capable of NOW has been raging for months now and it really wasn't until today that I started to get some clarity on things...
I've been doing this "triathlon thing" for about a year... I started training about 6 months out from my first race, so since my first race was in October of 09, that puts me starting to train around April, which is probably when it was... So, I've been doing this "triathlon thing" for about 14 months, give or take.... And in those 14 months, I have done things I literally never thought I would... or more importantly, could... I thought my first race would be a flash in the pan... Maybe I'd stick with it, maybe I wouldn't... I kept telling myself I would, but once I got past Eagleman, I "lost interest" with triathlon and focused on running a Half Marathon... This week marked a milestone for me with swimming... If I think back to a year ago, which was right before I moved to Tuscaloosa, if I swam at all on any given day, it probably wasn't much more than a few 100 yards, with maybe a set of 50 yards kick thrown in... A year later, I'm averaging well over 2,000 a workout, and swam 1700 without stopping on Friday.... In just one year... one year.... one year...
So this epiphany I had is this: in one year, I have come SO far... a year ago, I couldn't run more than 3.1 miles (maybe 4) and today I ran almost 7 (and a HARD 7 at that)... In just October, I couldn't ride my bike anymore than 20 or so miles without being destroyed... Saturday, I rode 53 in a little under 3 hrs.... All of this in just one year....
I'm impatient as they come... I want things now.... But I'm starting to realize (as Dad has already) that in a year from now, or two years from now, or three or however many is when I'll REALLY start to produce... Dad mentioned after my first race back in October that "this time next year, you'll be a different person if you keep this lifestyle up"... And that's something that I'm hoping to embrace--that this "triathlon thing" is going to take years to get good at... I don't necessarily have the God given talent (or especially body!) to be a fast triathlete... But I DO have the ability to be a triathlete... I can swim, bike, and run, and that's more than some people... I just have to take things one step at a time, admit and accept defeat when it rears its ugly head, and use it to improve...
So it looks like me, the Lake Lurleen bike loop, and the Shamblin run loop will be getting to know eacother quite well over the next several weeks :(
This Hell Week is over... until the next one begins...
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