You know what I've realized these past few days? I'm getting very territorial about my long run and ride. Rides are 3-4 hours long now and runs almost an hour and a half. I have eight coached/group sessions a week: three swim, one track run, three weight training, and one group trainer session. At 13:20 now, that's over half of my weekly sessions (8.5 hours since trainer session is 1.5 hours). Need to add three and a half hours just to get to half. So I do enough stuff in groups. Even if I were doing the full IM load of 20 hours, I think I'd still want those 12 hours to myself and the eight group sessions would be enough of a group setting. I'm not --against-- group stuff and if a chance to go ride or run with someone comes along I'd take it. But I'm not necessarily seeking it out. If it happens, it happens. Last week I had an extra alone trainer session, this week I don't (the extra five bike miles and extra run mile take care of the 45 minutes on the trainer time-wise). I've come to really enjoy working out on my own and I can go at my own pace. I view it as almost kind of selfish. That run and that bike is my alone time with myself. And there's something different about alone time with yourself while you're laying in bed vs. running and biking. I need time with myself running and biking. It's like I'm searching for something. And yet, I also look out every week for opportunities to partner up for that long run and ride. That's a gift that triathlon training has given me, the ability to go solo or in a group, and after being positively absolutely certain I could never work out on my own, I appreciate how big and special of a gift it is. I used to say, literally, that if I had to work out alone I'd be fat. That's no longer the case.
Something's been happening to me. I've been teethering for the last week or so into falling, how do I put it, into that place where you really discover yourself. I've been suspicious for months now, since I started training, that I'm scared of going hard. Why, well now that's the million dollar question isn't it. Specially on the bike. Pacing, pacing, pacing. I don't know how to pace. It's an art and a science. Pushing enough so that you have nothing left at the end but making sure you don't run out of energy before you run out of workout. How to hit that perfect spot. I don't know how, and it's something I'll have to develop in the next year. But at least now I've been mentally toying with the idea of --really-- pushing myself and testing my physical and mental limits. It's like I'm at the edge of dark cold waters dipping my right big toe in. Testing it out to see how cold it is and whether I really want to jump in. There's something alluring about that place where you --really-- your physical and mental limits, and it's calling my name. I think I'm ready to become an athlete.
How do I push past that fear and test my limits? I think the trainer session tonight will provide the perfect opportunity. Lactate threshold test and all. Got the derailleur fixed and the tires switched, trainer ready, and getting some GatorSkins this Friday so I'll be on the road Sunday. Two things go wrong and I have no downtime, couldn't have asked for more.
Why do I fear pushing myself? Part of me wonders if it's fear or just lack of knowledge. Let's take the pool. Coach says off-handedly something alone the lines that your hand is kind of cupped when you stroke as if it's general knowledge. Well, *I* didn't know, I thought it was supposed to be straight. Nobody ever told me. Same kind of concept. No one's ever taught me how to really push beyond myself. I don't have a lifetime experience of being an athlete. Three years if you count the group classes. Six months if you count triathlon training. So I'm very much in my infancy of athleticism. It may just be a matter of time and letting the process happen. If so, I think I'm at the adolescent stage now, rebelling. Discovering myself. Angry. Why can't I be better, why can't I go faster, why I can't go longer, I want it --now--. But I can wait, because I know it will happen eventually and I'm trying to breathe in and remember as much of the process as possible. I can't remember the process when I went through the group classes, the change. It's all a blur, nebulous. I don't want to blink and miss it this time around. I want to undertand it, to remember it, to savor it, to save it forever.
Head against the wall, head against the wall, 11.3, 11.4 miles per hour on the bike. "Normal" people train for six months and go 14-17 MPH easy. My body doesn't seem to respond like other people's and it is soooo frustrating. That little nagging voice saying, what if I never get better. What if 11mm is something to be excited about when running. Why can't I be pulling 9 minute miles like normal people, like everyone else? Why can't I train myself to 7 and 8 minute miles after six months of training?
It's a good thing I have the perfect combination of hard-headedness, stubborness, hope, and faith.
I want to be good. I want to put in the hours, I want to put in the time, I want to put in the effort, I want to put in the training. I just would like to know that sooner or later I'll get results. I don't care how long it takes as long as it happens eventually. Is it one of those things that just suddenly one day your body wakes up and goes, hello, let's do this? Shoots up exponentially?
Screw 95 North, I'm staying at Red Rock. Me and my 11 MPH hills. Mine mine mine :) Watching people go by past me their legs moving effortlessly at 17 MPH while mine struggle at 7-9 MPH up the hills. Why can't my legs move like that.
I am beginning to really crave training. Getting to the point of no return where the training really seeps into my body and overtakes it for as many hours that week as the calendar says and nothing else matters but the task at hand. Time to get serious. 14 weeks to Pumpkinman and counting.
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