Are You Listening?

What do you do when you hear bad news? Do you dwell on it and let it affect your future? Does it make you want to fight even harder for what you want? What should you do? I think you have to find a healthy balance. You can't let your life and attitude be affected by things you can't control, and yet you must develop the skills of a good listener. History is filled with examples of leaders that pressed on in the face of adversity to accomplish many amazing things. Likewise, there are many examples of people who ignored the voice of reason and forged ahead... straight to their own destruction. This is the same in life and triathlon. God has a purpose for you and allows you to suffer trials so that you can be refined like gold being refined by the fire. His spirit, at the same time, is speaking to you. If you are not inclined to believe that, you might miss a blessing, or worse, plod headstrong into even more suffering. If you stop running the first time you get a stitch in your side, you're going to miss the fitness benefits that are gained when you push through the pain. And if you keep pushing through that strange little twinge in your knee run after run without giving it a rest, you might risk the possibility of not being able to run in the future. You must be able to listen.
I'm struggling right now with exactly that. I've set a goal of ironman texas on may21st. After being hit by that car during a training ride back in June, the doctor has told me to temporarily stop riding my bike and limit my running to a slow-paced 20 mins at a time. We don't exactly know why my hands go numb when I'm riding my bike, and apparently the doctor sees some lingering concussion symptoms even 5 months later. At what point do I decide that the ironman is no longer a realistic goal? I still have 6 1/2 months of training left , and I have already built my base level of fitness to a greater level than ever before. But... If I don't spend a TON of quality time on the bike over the winter, I will be in serious trouble come May. I guess I'll just wait and see... or... I guess I should say... hear.

The Joy and the Pain

At some point you're gonna have to learn to enjoy the suffering. As these old sayings go, "Nothing worth while is easy... If it were easy everyone would be doing it... What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." The burning in your chest when you try to breath after finishing your very first 5-mile run doesn't mean you dying... It means you're finally living. And the funny thing is, that feeling eventually goes away. And that means you're getting stronger.

This is a concept that every successful triathlete is familiar with as well as every saint who has a rich and rewarding walk with Christ.

The Bible tells us that if we are to be transformed into something pure, righteous, and holy, then we are to be refined with a purifying fire. So... don't look at your life and let fear overwhelm you when you consider your future, don't stress about the things you can't change, and don't check out at the first sign of adversity. Lace up your shoes a bit tighter and listen to the voice of your trainer who promises he's not going to push you past your limits.

So whether in life or in your triathlon training, you should look at the pain as part of the process of becoming an endurance athlete. Like I said, this is not a new concept. Just check out this passage of scripture written thousands of years ago.

The book of James, Chapter 1, verses 2-3. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

That brings me to this week's training. I finally got an MRI on my neck after being hit by that car back in June. I'm trying to figure out why I keep getting headaches and why my hands keep falling asleep when I ride my bike. After seeing the films, the doctor is referring me to the same neurosurgeon that did my lower back surgery this time last year stating, "near spinal chord contact". I know... kinda makes me nervous. I should be finding out this next week if I got something bad going on in my neck. So... no swimming this week, for obvious reasons. I've run about an hour every day and felt pretty good doing it. By the end of the week my knees were giving me some indication that they wanted a rest, so I took Thursday and Friday off. Today (Saturday) I went on a 4 1/2 hour bike ride and have been trying to shake the tingling feeling out of my hand for the past 4-5 hours, and since then my quads and I aren't on speaking terms... they say they no longer want to be my friends. This Ironman is truly going to be one of the most difficult things I've ever done. OH JOY!!!!!

ironman and pit bulls

The second week of ironman training is now in the books and it gets packed away with quite the exclamation point. Today was to be my long run at the end of a very productive week that only saw one rest day. But instead of a 2-hour 12 miler, I had to settle for 9 miles in 1 1/2. The credit and blame for todays performance goes to my amazing new neighbors throughout the community. The reason I am able to pull off a long run without any hydration issues is the fact that I can stash a couple of water bottles in my mail box and loop back around by the house as soon as I need one. But who wants to carry a water bottle the whole time they're running? Not me. But I don't have to worry about that... whether trash day was yesterday, today, or tomorrow someone somewhere will have there trash cans at the corner. Hooray for no deed restrictions... (note the sarcasm.) But seriously, here's the bad part about training here. Today I was attacked by a loose pit bull. I saw him run into the street ahead of me and tried to stay behind. He turned around and saw me... stopped... and waited for me. I kept my pace and decided to assume the best about this innocent looking puppy. Maybe he was just taking in the sight of a 6'5" human running past him at such blazing fast speeds (again... sarcasm). The instant I passed him I see him out of the corner of my eye break into a sprint heard him bark like he just found his next meal. In a matter of two seconds the following thought process went through my head. One... "I'm going to die." Two... "He can run faster than me." Three... " I guess I better attack him." At that point I started barking and running toward the dog. He wasn't backing down. we got 6" away from each other ... both barking... before he finally backed off and ran away...

what away to end week two of training.

Here's the breakdown...

Monday - 2 hr bike ride

Tuesday - 1 hr run

Wednesday - rest day

Thursday - Strength training/Core workout & short fast run

Friday - 1 hr run

Saturday - 2 hr bike ride

Sunday - 1 & 1/2 hr run + a single canine fartlek (yes I just invented that)

Ironman Training For The Type B Personality

It's getting close to commitment time. A typical ironman training schedule is about 36 weeks. So right now, I'm not beating myself up if I miss a workout, or if I have the fried rice instead of steamed with my triple delight and egg roll. Those that know me, know that I rarely beat myself up over that stuff anyway. But, things are going to have to change. Or are they?
I've been searching for a training program online that will fit me perfectly. I'm still searching.
The typical ironman-in-training may or may not have a job that requires 50+ hrs a week (like me), may or may not have a family (like me), and may or may not care if he finishes under 12 hrs with enough energy to skip across the finish line in the daylight (not like me). I am playing referree to an internal battle between my heart and my mind. The majority of the training programs out there are written by and intended for type "A" personalities who really enjoy counting their calories, logging their workouts, and monitoring their progress searching for "trends" that will help them alter their training, fueling, recovery etc. to maximize their performance on race day. These programs START at 12 hrs a week and move up to 16-18. Well, what if you truly just want to finish before the cutoff with a smile on your face and walk away with a great story you'll be able to tell the rest of your life. Where's the training program for that? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying one should not approach an ironman without a great deal of respect and seriousness. There is a lot at stake. You can really hurt yourself attempting one of these. And I believe I have an appropriate amount of respect for the sport to know what I'm getting into. This is not a decision I've made on a whim. I've been involved in the sport of triathlon for almost 5 years and while an ironman may be on my "bucket list", improved fitness is not. Fitness is more of a lifestyle commitment that I have to make every day. It's an investment in my future with my family. Besides, an Mdot tattoo just wouldn't look right if it got all fat and stretched out, HA!
I could stress over finding and committing to the right program a bit more, but that would take a bit of the fun out of the process. Coach K (of the Duke Blue Devils) says that champions aren't just passionate about competing, they are passionate about preparation. He's right. But I'm not trying to qualify for Kona. I might not ever do anything longer than Olympic distance tri from here on out... who knows? My point is this, unless I find a program that will allow me to train before 6:00am (I work construction) and after 8pm M-F (my daughter's bedtime) and squeeze in long bricks on the weekends, my daughter will be 4 by the time ironman TX comes around and I will completely miss out on her being 3... and I am quite enjoying her as a 3 yr old. And I'm sure my wife would like to see me every once in a while. I've had a bad habbit of letting my hobbies get in the way of what is truly important to me, and that's NOT a part of the plan this time around. Discipline (the character that every triathlete recognizes as a virtue) is primarily about improving the quality of your life, not mis-aligning your priorities so that your life and everything truly important in it begins to suffer.
So train, and train hard. But put it into perspective every once in a while.