In this post I talk about my training and motivation -- because it's all about me, right? It's my damn blog. Ha. -- and at the end I link to a phenomenal writer and include a snip of her phenomenally motivating recent post. If you wanna skip my musings, be sure to click through to read Sarah's blog. So gifted and wise for only 28.
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After 3 months off, I am starting to really miss triathlon training. But my group half-marathon training just commenced on Saturday and I can tell this is gonna be good. I've been largely training by myself for the past 2 years, and what a difference a group makes!
We meet at 6:30 pm on Tuesdays (to run) and Thursdays (for bootcamp); I wasn't sure about night running but last night was my fantastic first night run. It feels a bit like running in the rain -- you see all the warm lights in the windows... everyone home from work, snug and cozy, fixing dinner -- and you're out running in the chilly dark. Awesome. Makes me feel a tiny bit bad-ass. Then Saturdays are our long runs. I'm adding stairs and hill repeats on Sundays.
When I got home last night I logged on to BuckeyeOutdoors.com for the first time this year -- it's the only free program I know of where I can create my own training plan, upload Garmin data and create reports. Since I have PT 4x per week (for shoulder rehab and previous injury prevention), plus a focus on weight training for the off-season, plus needing to add in a few more running miles each week, I knew I needed to map out a plan. Having a coach and weekly plans in Training Peaks really kept me going earlier this year, and now I need to do it for myself.
So I've been thinking about motivation, and what I need to keep going. For the first 40 years of my life I wasn't into sports, so I haven't built up that inherent need to move like many of you who started young. I just started all this last January and I'm realizing that while I'm gradually "becoming" an athlete and crave sport after I've been away for a couple months, I'm not there yet. I need some external motivators... I need to intentionally create the context and conditions that will keep me on the path. Those things include:
- Accountability, whether training with friends or having a coach
- Companionship to keep things fun. Fortunately this overlaps with accountability.
- A plan. If I wake up without something specific to do on my calendar, it doesn't get done.
- A goal. I've signed up for two half marathons in 2012. Knowing that I MUST hit a certain distance by x date to avoid another sufferfest is key.
- Cheering on others' successes. I love following friends and fellow bloggers as they accomplish things I can only dream of. So excited for Molly and Mary for great races at IMAZ. Loved reading Alyssa's race at IMAZ for a Kona slot; I actually teared up at the big pass with 1/4 mile to go. Amazing. I've always believed I'd NEVER do a full IM, but in the last couple days I've been thinking that it's no longer inconceivable.
But hang on... one step at a time. I need to get my body comfortable with running 13.1, and that's the goal of my two 13.1's on the calendar. I need to get my shoulder rehabbed so that I can start swimming and training for Wildflower by Feb 1. If I can manage both of those goals, I'll find a late-season 70.3 to train for.
It's exciting to have a general plan and goal for next year, knowing that things may change but that I'm working towards something... a gradual progression of distance, speed, and comfort with the process. I didn't have this sense earlier this year... I'd just wanted to complete a 70.3 but it wasn't in any kind of greater context for my life. I didn't have a "what's next." This 3-month slugfest has really sucked from a fitness retention standpoint but awesome from a mental standpoint. I'm realizing that sport is becoming part of me; not something I have to do to stay healthy but something that is simply part of who I am. And that's really cool.
In closing, I thought you'd enjoy this fantastic blog post, The hard work is worth it. I was trying to find a shorter clip to post here, but I can't get any shorter than this. (Note: she's not a tri blogger, but she is a triathlete. I find her posts inspirational for all areas of my life.)
My swim coach used to call this “cashing in.” At the end of the year, all of your work, all of your invisible hours in the pool, laps painted and erased on top of each other in tireless sequence; every set a measure against yourself; each frustrating day in the cold pool, each microscopic change in threshold potential–it’s all work that you’re putting in the bank. Exhausted, I would look up to my coach from the water and ask him with my eyes, “Can I ever make it? Am I doing it? Is this worth it?” He knew, intrinsically, the phenomenon that is cumulative, additive work, of minor changes built into powerful movements, and yet all he could do was push us to do our best in the present, enticing us into the future by telling us the stories of great legends before in his attempt to inspire us and make us dream. Without knowing, without having been there, I had to put my head down in the water and trust, trust, trust that the hard work would be worth it. My muscles shivered. I was tired. Could I do it?
Yet throughout the year, he would tell us over and over again, “Put your money in the bank!!” And when we did something great, he’d jump up and down and shout excitedly, “THAT’S the money in the bank!” I would return to the wall, trying again, reaching, stretching, hands seeking something invisible and unknown, wondering if any of my work would add up, doubtful that the painstaking days of testing would measure up to something worthwhile. But I trusted. I continued.
And then when the collection time came, when all other fanfare was stripped away and we were faced, naked, with the clock and a crowd and our bodies, when the end-of-the-year championship performance would arrive as it inevitably did each year, we’d see what we were capable of. How we did. What our cumulative actions amounted to. Whether or not we’d been working hard and building up assets. We would cash in. And somehow, in the four-year tenure of my time there, somehow they transformed an awkward, inexperienced, shy teenage swimmer from the slowest lane into a chiseled, daunting, All-American swimmer–this person I still don’t fully recognize today, despite years gone by. A trophy on the wall: this is the evidence that I marvel at as a reminder that yes, it can happen.It can happen to me. I can make it happen. You can make it happen.
It happens.
Happy off-season training!
