Crisis of motivation, crisis of confidence

These days I spend much of my time staring at a blank page on a computer screen, waiting for inspiration to strike. After a while I realize the pointlessness of that exercise, so I transcribe some minutes of the hours upon hours of interviews I have in my recorder. Between sentences, I idly surf the internet, and wonder what would happen if the university knew it was paying me a handsome sum of money to spend my days this way.

Outside of work it's not much different. I idly surf the internet, wondering if I should go back in to work or if I should get out on the bike, or if I should have a beer and make dinner. I also wonder if I should email the girl who's not interested in a long-distance relationship to let her know I understand and hope we can remain friends — or whatever line of bullshit people in that situation feed each other. When I wake up in the morning, the guilty feeling that I should be at my desk by 6:30 overrides the necessity of training, so straight to the kitchen for breakfast, then off to work after the morning ritual.

Let's go back to June 12 and the Boise half-Ironman. I was as undertrained for a race of that magnitude as ever, and one guy I talked to at the hotel said, "That's great. You don't have any expectations." Indeed. Still, my personal best of 5:09:13 from my first half-Ironman has been on the books for too long, and every time I toe the line in a race of that distance I hope for a PR. Boise was no exception. Still, the race started at 2 p.m. and because of the limited access to the swim venue we had to be there two hours before the race. There was no shade and as the sun beat down on us, the energy seemed to evaporate in the 80-degree warmth, about 10 degrees warmer than anything I'd trained in.

My swim was four minutes slower than it needed to be, despite feeling as good as I could have hoped in my restrictive neoprene sausage casing while cutting through the chop. The bike was where the wheels came off (no pun intended) as a 30 mph wind made it feel like I was wearing a parachute. Everybody had to deal with it, though, so aside from wasting mental and physical energy fighting the wind I had no excuse. The first few miles of the run went well, until I depleted my salt stores and felt heavier and heavier. I walked much of the last two miles and jogged across the line in 5:46.

I spent not only much of the 10-hour drive home pondering my future in the sport, I've done that for much of the past month. I want to qualify for Kona, which was the reason for starting this shitty blog in the first place, and I want to qualify for Boston. But 22 years since my first triathlon, however, there's far too much I'm still figuring out — nutrition, how to get out of my wetsuit with numb hands, how to adjust my effort when it's hotter and windier than I'd anticipated, nutrition, how is far is too far to drive for a race, how to best execute flying mounts and dismounts from the bike, and nutrition.

So I wonder how much effort I'm willing to put in for a lost cause. From my best Ironman time of 11:42 on a dead-flat course in ideal weather, I need to drop about two hours to qualify definitively, and an hour-and-a-half to have a reason to show up for the Kona spot rolldown the day after. I was told months ago that, in the words of a certain Nike commercial, everything [I] have is inside. If that's the case than I'm missing some parts. The girl said it's time for me to hire a coach, because I've been doing things my way for this long and it's obviously not working. If I could retain a nutritionist and a psychologist for the same monthly price as a coach, I'd be fucking golden. But I'm still looking up a mountain at a lofty goal, and all I see is the storm building over the peak. The space between my ears might as well be a thousand miles wide.

If my hobby is in that bad of a state, my work is even worse, and more urgent because it is my livelihood. A couple weeks ago our designer was laid off and for that two weeks we were a ship without a sail. Thankfully, he's back in a freelance capacity, but it created some drama and uncertainty we didn't need.

Personally, I feel completely bereft of creativity. The interviews, for the most part, are done but I can't write. I feel like warning my boss to expect straight AP shit on the cover story. Thankfully, a freelancer has stepped in to take one of the 1,000-word features off my hands. The last issue came out and has gotten positive reviews. A couple of my friends told me they loved the cover story. That praise does me good.

But now? I don't know. In addition to the aforementioned time-wasting (add to the list strolling all the way across campus to get coffee, and strolling across campus for no reason at all) I spent time wishing for a job at a widget factory, something that requires no brainpower and still provides a steady check. I lived on shit wages in newspapers, so no salary is too small. I just want to do my job and go home, and I don't want to end up tearing my hair out or going insane over the accomplishment of those duties. That's not the case here. I'm worried about my ability to get my stories done, edited, and laid out in a timely manner. I'm worried about my boss discovering just how far behind I am. I'm worried about which steps in getting the magazine to the printer I'll forget. I'm worried about one of the four remaining delinquent computer scientists not returning my email before I need to write the cover story. And I'm worried about a dry creative faucet when it comes time to write.

So I haven't been motivated to work, and I haven't been motivated to train. For the first time in years, all I've been motivated to do is love, and that didn't work out. It's affecting me more than I thought it would, but I can't use that as an excuse. I guess I have to press on, no matter what.