Thoughts on motivation, or lack thereof

The next-to-last race in the International Triathlon Union's World Championship Series took place in Yokohama, Japan, in late September. It's the top level of Olympic-distance (1.5k/40k/10k) racing in the world, and all the triathletes who competed in London in August also compete in this series. Universal Sports televises the races about two weeks after they run, neatly packaging the 1-hour, 48-minute (for the men) or 2-hour (women) races into a nice, little 90-minute package.

Anyway, the Yokohama event was the last race before this weekend's Grand Final. As most of those races do, it came down to the run. A group of eight off the bike became seven, then six, then five, then two in the final mile. Javier Gomez of Spain (the 2010 series champ and Olympic silver medalist) had to hold off João Silva of Portugal, who won the 2011 Yokohama race — and he didn't. Silva sprinted ahead with a kilometer to go but Gomez stayed in contact.

And this is what separates them from me.

If I were Silva, I'd have given it a hell of an effort. But the thought would have entered my head: "Dude, you're trying to hold off one of the best runners in the sport, a world champ, an Olympic medalist. There's no shame in getting run down by that guy."

Watching the final kilometer unfold, though, I could tell Silva had none of that. Fuck moral victories, he thought. I'm putting the pedal down and holding on, no matter how tired I am, how much lactic acid is accumulating in my body, how loud my brain screams to slow down. He beat the eventual winner of this weekend's grand final by 13 seconds. It goes without saying that winning and losing are both learned behaviors and at some point Silva learned to win, and called on those lessons when he needed them most. The difference between the two top spots on the podium is thousands of dollars, but take that away and you still figure the gold medal looks a lot better hanging from your neck then the silver. Or no medal at all.

***

At 23 years old, Canada's Paula Findlay has won five times on the WCS, a career's worth of accomplishment in a very short period of time. She won twice in 2010 and three times in 2011, but hobbled to a finish in the 2012 Olympics because of a hip injury (TORN labrum) that will require surgery this winter. This poor girl hadn't finished a race in months when she toed the line at the Olympics, determined to represent her country — and convinced she could win... something.

Getting to the start line on August 4^th was a feat in itself. Injuries, appeals, coaching changes, politics, and a less than ideal time frame to get into race shape. Despite all this, I wasn’t headed to the Olympics just to participate and call myself an Olympian. I wanted to be on the podium. I was aware that my chances of accomplishing this were significantly lower after my difficult year, but it never lessened my desire to be the best. I lined up against 54 of the worlds fastest triathletes wanting to beat them, and believing that maybe I could. If I didn’t believe that it could happen, then there’s no way it was going to happen. (Yeah I know, it didn’t happen). 

Another thing that separates them from me — that unshakable belief in one's self, one's training and one's abilities. You see that in professional team sports, athletes hanging on to that thread of belief that they can make the team. The pitcher has lost 5 mph from his fast ball but got guys out before and has no reason to believe he can't again. The quarterback won the Heisman Trophy in college and all his teammates are in the NFL, so why wouldn't he believe he can play the position at that level? The midfielder is one of the best set-piece players in the world, so of course he thinks he can still land a 40-yard free kick within five yards of the goal on to a teammate's head. He did it four years ago, didn't he? 

In Findlay's case, she had the benefit of knowing she'd beaten every one of those girls before. That said, she hadn't been close in nearly a year because of a fairly serious injury. She was, in the parlance of American sport, a game-time decision and I was surprised to even see her on the start list, given what was at stake for her future; why would she risk long-term health to compete in the Olympics at 23? Because she knew she could.

***

After my shite effort at Lake Placid — and ill-fated attempt at a run a week later, which led to a season-ending injury — I've had a lot of time to cobble together these examples. I've pondered my strength of belief and concluded it just isn't there.

As a professional journalist I deal in facts. At times I've pondered practicing law, because you use facts to build a case and beat someone over the head with them. An old girlfriend once accused me of unfairly wielding the "logic stick" in emotional matters. And I have absolutely no evidence in the bank to believe I can qualify for Kona or Boston. In 2007 I ran a 1:31:25 half-marathon; to qualify for Boston I'd need to do that twice, and I never felt like I could even-split at that rate of speed (6:58/mile). To qualify for Kona I need to cut two hours from my best Ironman time, which was done on a calm, cool day on a dead-flat course in ideal conditions. No race of any distance in the past six years shows that I've done anything right in this regard, and given how I've folded mentally when it got tough I don't know if I'll develop the toughness necessary to persevere through the tough training and racing days.

So begins yet another winter of soul-searching.

The Feather in my Whiskers/Final Thoughts pre-Placid

William Nack wrote the definitive eulogy for the legendary thoroughbred Secretariat for Sports Illustrated in a story called Pure Heart. Aside from being a phenomenal piece of writing, the headline came from the fact that, upon the autopsy, we learned that Secretariat had a much larger heart than the average racehorse, which the doctor figured enabled the horse to do what he did.

That's not why I bring it up, though that massive heart holds scores of parables for endurance athletes. I bring it up for an anecdote mentioned in the story, buried on the seventh page.

One afternoon I was folded in a chair outside the colt's stall when Secretariat came to the door shaking his head and stretching his neck, curling his upper lip like a camel does. "What's botherin' you, Red?" Sweat asked. The groom stepped forward, plucked something off the colt's whiskers and blew it in the air. "Just a pigeon feather itchin' him," said Sweat. 

I have a feather in my whiskers as well, and equally insignificant if I can think of it that way. It's a pin, millimeters wide and less than an inch long. It holds a watch band to the watch, and apparently Timex no longer makes them up to standard. After my second Ironman watch gave up the ghost last week after seven years, three Ironmans, three marathons and more miles than I can count, I bought a new one at REI in Fort Collins, thanks in part to my dividend. I got it home and put it on; this was last Thursday. On Friday, I took it off to hit the shower and the band popped out. I don't feel I put any more torque than normal on the band but that pin just popped. I spent most of the afternoon trying to put it back together and I just didn't have a tool fine enough to get it there. Saturday, I took it to a jeweler, who kindly put the band back in place for no charge. However, he handed me the watch and threw his hands up a little.

"It's plastic so I can't promise the band will stay on," he said. "I heard the pin snap in there but it's really flimsy."

Indeed, as I write this I wear the one I got during my senior year in high school. The labels have faded from the buttons on the face and the beep no longer works, but it keeps time and counts down. So if any 38-year-old was ever in a position to say "they don't make 'em like the used to," it's me.

That pin is the only thing keeping me from totally dialing in mentally. The main function of a timepiece in Ironman is to count down the 10 minutes between blasts of fluids and protect the pale racing stripe around my wrist. Otherwise, I can ballpark my elapsed time. And didn't I note a couple weeks ago the liberation of racing without a chronograph ticking away the minutes?

It's frustrating because I feel better about this training process than for any of the previous five Ironmans I've done. I've fueled myself well, I'll get to the line healthy and rested (notwithstanding the time of this post) and I'm excited to skip away from work at a crucial time to test myself against the day. And this little pin threatens to take down everything I've built.

But I won't let it. I'm bringing all three watches with me, and after I give the guy at the Timex booth an earful about his shoddy product, I'll decide which one gets the nod on Sunday. After all, it would be a training process without a a feather in my whiskers that I have to brush out of there myself.

Oh yeah, the real first race, or Turning Off Your Head

Maybe I left the eight of you hanging on what happened at the race that ended up being my first of 2012 after two false starts. Or maybe you were looking for beer recipes and stumbled in here thanks to my four-year-old photo. In any event, I apologize, something I've done quite a bit lately.

I've done the Loveland Lake-to-Lake Triathlon five times now, more than any other race. It's a 1.5K (.93 miles) swim, a 30-mile bike and a 10K run that starts in a lake near Loveland High School. The bike course is the highlight of the day, and normally it takes racers along some foothills between Loveland and Fort Collins, complete with a massive climb and a screaming descent around Horsetooth Reservoir before a long, flat hammer back to Loveland. The run is just a lap around Loveland Lake.

This year, because of the High Park Fire the course was modified and shortened so that it stayed down in the Loveland area, a flatter course with a couple of shorter climbs than the original. The run was changed because of construction around the lake, so no one could really compare past results to their performance on that day.

Which I welcomed, at least in the final analysis. I didn't start my watch because ... I don't know, it just didn't seem like the thing to do. My wave went last so I made a note of the time of day when each wave left, with it in mind to take a guess at the end of the race; we have timing chips, which get a more accurate time than any wristwatch, anyway.

The swim was the same 1500 meters and my time of 23 minutes and something stacked up with my previous performances. The chip time, however, is taken at the entrance to transition, a nice 400-yard run from the water's edge, which adds a couple minutes to everyone's swim time. Before the ride I set the watch's countdown timer to beep every 10 minutes so I knew when to drink electrolytes. Which I did. I passed a lot of people on the bike but dialed it back a little when I made the turn for the lake.

Only when I got my running shoes on did I start my watch — and it ran for about 30 seconds before it completely blanked and emitted this high-pitched beep for the remainder of the race. Even though I couldn't turn off the watch I turned off my head and monitored my pace by feel. I wanted to ditch the watch in the bushes or maybe toss it in the lake but at this point I'm protecting the 20-plus-year strip of white around my wrist from having worn a watch forever. Guess I'm more vain than I thought.

Anyway, at some point on the as-yet-undetermined-distance run, my legs took on some lactic acid, my turnover decreased and I just got my ass across the line. The run turned out to be 5.1 miles, and I averaged 7:46 per. The watch stopped beeping and completely reset after a while.

Nevertheless, I don't know if I'll ever start a watch with the gun again. I needed a race to get my head and my body on the same page and this might have been it. So we'll see what the blank-faced watch has in store going forward.

About that first race...

It wasn't to be. Hours after the last post, I got through almost an entire shift at work before I started shivering, sweating and hacking up pieces of lung tissue — actually it was self-created bright yellow stuff that doesn't biodegrade when expectorated on one's patio and dried out in the sun (I know, gross as hell but that's your fault for reading). I woke up Wednesday morning feeling worse and facing one more night of work, though I felt slightly better before I headed to work.

As the night went on I felt slightly better by the hour... but not well enough to take on a half-Ironman in less than 72 hours. Wednesday at work, after consulting via electronic communications with a couple of trusted peers, I decided to pull the plug. There was no way I could get through a five-hour race at no more than 50 percent, let alone one in the projected weather for race day — 50, rainy and windy. That would have put Ironman Lake Placid in jeopardy because of the whole compounding illness thing. You know what I mean, right?

So I ended up with a spare weekend on my hand, the last free weekend in Cheyenne for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, not only did the weather pan out as expected but they shortened the cycling leg without shortening the other two. It turned out to be a 1.2-mile swim, a 12-mile bike and a 13.1-mile run! The ride was so short that a couple of the pros wore their wetsuits on the ride to the bike-to-run transition area. If a race ever fit my skillset, this was it. I was pissed the hell off, for sure, but rebooted with a nice weekend of social activity —which I might have needed more than a race.

Thursday was low-country boil, poker and NBA conference finals. Friday was a World Cup qualifier with friends and dog at home, beer and music on the plaza, dinner and a drinkie downtown and "Prometheus." Saturday was more beer and music on the plaza, a cold foo-foo coffee drink and a birthday barbecue.

I don't remember what Sunday was but none of those days involved working out or working. It pointed out the importance of recovery, of letting the illness run its course while bombing it with a couple kinds of juice, electrolytes, vitamins and water — OK, there was some beer involved, too. The virus didn't know what hit it. And on Monday, life returned to normal with a swim in my Petri dish. I was rested and stoked, all I really needed.

First race in the offing

When last we corresponded, I had helped my pool by swimming an hour in it in the middle of the night. Turns out the proceeds went toward a sauna. A sauna. Also known as something I never use, a place where more bacteria live than in the pool. Oddly, I still haven't forked over my earnings (my parents chipped in close to a dollar for every 100 meters) and no one has asked where they are. Frankly, I would turn them over in protest, with the caveat that if the Y has a similar fundraiser next year I'll do it on the condition that I know where the money's going beforehand.

In the meantime, I had a shitty state masters swim meet (one PR in six events), took a month off from the pool to be pissed off, hit the cycling and running hard, returned to the pool on a limited basis and muddled through the past 10 weeks of training. Among other discoveries:

• I still process heat about as well as a Siberian husky. Yesterday's run took me to wherever I could find trees. I intended to run about 2 hours, 20 minutes but came 25 minutes short on an 85-degree day, a run that took me to the pop fountains at two different convenience stores. Still couldn't cool off, and I struggled mightily. We won't even talk about the sweat-soaked 14-miler I did on an 85-degree morning in Atlanta (see below).

• Nutrition is still a moving target. Last week I rode to Pierce, Colorado — about 73 miles round trip. It got a little warm, round 70 degrees, and I took no fluids for the last hour of the ride — because nothing I took the first three hours absorbed. I've had this problem before and learned it's an issue with salt intake. Really? Mac and cheese twice a week and I'm not getting enough salt?

• I fucking hate that pool. They keep it at 86 degrees for physical therapy, which I understand. Expecting us to crank out laps in there is folly at best. Does the name Fran Crippen ring a bell? No? He died in 87-degree waters near Dubai in 2010.

• My training wasn't complete shit. While in Sheridan for the state soccer tournament, I ran from our hotel to Big Horn and back, 14.6 miles of smooth road on a chilly, sunny morning. The total running time was 2:05:40, though I left the watch running while taking a potty break. After jogging out to downtown Big Horn I saw a mile marker at the side of the road (which I hadn't seen on the way down). I figured out where Mile Zero was — and picked it up. The three miles after the turnaround I ran in 8:14, 7:37, 7:00, then the aforementioned break, then three more miles in 7:31, 7:46, 7:14. That's 6 miles in 45:22 in the middle of a training run.

• I skipped my first race to go to Atlanta. My mom had a small stroke in mid-April, and while I had the vacation time planned for the Razor City Splash and Dash, plans had to change. While in the ATL, I watched my niece Alex finish third in the 3200-meter run at the Georgia state track meet (one day after winning the 1600!), I watched her little sister Samantha play soccer, and I watched my other niece Lauren earn some academic awards at her high school's convocation.

As for my mom, I'll take her word that she was lightheaded and still needed her walker (she's since graduated to a cane) because in her demeanor there was absolutely no change. She's still incredibly sharp and conversational, might need one more nap than normal, but other than that she's still mom. Scary for me because my parents have both avoided some of the "old people" problems that happen to other 70-somethings. Strokes don't happen to my parents, they happen to old people!

• So my first race is the Boise half-Ironman (I refuse to call it 70.3). I hate to make my first race of the year a long one, but I don't regret my choice to skip the race in Gillette. So on Thursday I drive for 11-and-a-half hours to the Treasure Valley of Idaho, on Friday I do a quick spin and jog before getting my race packet, on Saturday I destroy myself in the name of fitness for five-and-a-half hours, and then on Sunday I drive for another 11-and-a-half hours to home sweet home.

• After that, I ramp up my training and destroy myself on a daily basis while pondering my future in sport with every stroke, every pedal turn, every footfall.

Night swimming, sort of

Longtime readers of this space have heard my repeated complaints about the places where I've swum. Here in Cheyenne, it's the 86-degree YMCA pool, which trumps the Municipal Pool near Lions Park by virtue of runoff gutters. There are rust-colored stains on the pool's floor at the Y, to go with missing sections of tile on the side, indeterminate brownish gook on the deck and full gutters when I get in each afternoon. But there's lap swimming in the middle of the day, most days I get my own lane and the lifeguards know I'm serious and have cleared out a lane for me. I wouldn't compare being a regular at a pool with being a regular at a bar, but there are benefits to going to the same place all the time and seeing the same folks. Not necessarily a bad thing.

It's a little bit after 3 a.m. on Sunday, March 18. Since it was March 17 by the time I got off work a little more than 24 hours ago, I did my green day revelry then, marking the day with a car bomb and a couple pints of Guinness. Tonight, though, I headed over to the pool after work to swim for an hour and raise money for pool repairs. I didn't really raise any money because a Facebook plea went unacknowledged and I hate asking people for money for any reason, especially since I'm the only one I know who uses the Y. So I'll front the require C-note myself and rest easy in the knowledge that I did my part to keep my place of swimming somewhat repaired.

While I do usually get my own lane when I swim during the day, it was weird to have the whole pool to myself. There were two lifeguards there, and one of them, a younger girl, had a friend there to keep her company. I swam. I got in the water immediately after a stud high-schooler got out, and I settled into a rhythm. To keep an accurate count, I swam every 12th length backstroke. I looked out the skylights above and they were black from the night sky, quite a departure from the usual stark white that lights up the pool. The big windows near the whirlpool also were dark; swimming at night gives a different perspective.

I never counted strokes per length or anything, but the above paragraph illustrates how I kept my mind occupied — surveying my environment, popping my head up every so often to hear what the radio was playing, thinking about life, wondering what would happen if the power went out and the water temperature dropped five degrees.

Oh, and trying to figure out how far I'd swum. Tonight illustrated perfectly why I rarely do long steady swims in my workouts. I can't count laps to save my life, even though tonight I rolled over for a length of backstroke every 300 meters. In high school, I'd wait for the fast dudes in the lane next to me to finish their 500s, then I'd swim an extra lap. No need to count. Now, it's intervals, all day every day.

So I swam roughly 3900 meters, because I know I miscounted in a couple of spots. For a one-hour swim, I'm happy about it. I got to take myself to an odd place for this time of night; exercising at night is always a rare treat, and if I didn't live in such a dodgy part of town I'd do it ore often. I got in a groove and stayed there, even if I can't fully quantify it. I created my own waves next to the wall and moved with their rise and fall.

And I had 100,000 gallons of tepid, chlorinated, artificially and poorly sanitized water to myself. A dude could get used to that.

Sun's Out, Guns Out!

Those are my pasty legs, which saw the sun for the first time since one of my lackluster runs in Atlanta. At least I think I ran once sans coverings while "home" for Christmas. Anyway, I am not wearing white tights in this picture. Those are my bare sticks, bearing the brunt of abuse from the treadmill and trainer these days. My "guns," if you will.

The quote at the top is from Missoula-based pro triathlete Linsey Corbin, who adopts this philosophy in winters possibly more harsh than mine. She also rides her bike on 40-degree days with legs exposed, a length to which I will not go.

I was a little chilly when I started out today, into a relatively light southwest breeze, but I eventually warmed up. I shed my beanie around 15 minutes in, and then the gloves another 10 minutes later. It was almost like a real run, save the long-sleeved shirt. I took 48 minutes to complete a 5.8-mile, somewhat rectangular circuit on the south side of town near my crib.

http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/61066138

In any event, we're back to the reality of winter tomorrow, a winter storm headed our way with snow and wind, wind and snow, driving me into the gym to save my lungs from a deep freeze.

And this is what you look like when you go swimming, put on a fleece beanie for the drive home, then get sweaty underneath a polypropylene beanie during the run. You end up with a dirty blond afro. Several strands near my forehead coalesced into the beginning of a righteous dreadlock that I scrubbed out immediately upon starting the shower. I'm a hippie at heart, but I would look silly with dreads, sillier with a single dread hanging in my face.

Music and training

Count me among the rare people who can train for hours without music. At least I can do it outside. To me it just doesn't seem safe to have the sound source in my ears with asshole motorists buzzing me, so I leave the iPod at home when I head out the door.

As for races, 90 percent of the time the rules forbid earphones or "personal sound systems" of any kind, which I can respect. Racing is about being in the moment and taking in all the stimuli around you — the crowd, other races, your breathing, your footfalls or pedal turns, the day in general. Having music with me creates an environment in and of itself, and each race presents a unique environment, one I like to experience on my own terms. The more different race environments, the better.

Indoor workouts are another story. Without something in my ear other than the rush of the water or my own labored breathing, I'd want to stab myself in the ears with a ball-point pen. So music it is.

Granted, with no sound source in the pool I have to make sure I've got a song in my head (and heart, I suppose). In which case, I'll play some tunes in my living room before driving to the pool, and then I'll listen to the radio on the drive. Now, I have been known to sit in the car for a few minutes in search of a song I can tolerate in my head for the hour I'm in there. Once I had some Lady Gaga bullshit infiltrating my workout (because it was the last thing I heard before getting out of the car, and you may cast whatever aspersions you want about my listening to a radio station that would play such music) and I wanted to beat my head into the wall. Lesson learned.

The treadmills at the Y here face a wall with three crappy TVs, but the TVs are not angled for visibility. That's fine, but it means I need some sort of outside stimulus. Enter the iPod. I can stare at the white wall (and the illustration of health benefits of elliptical/treadmill/stationary bike workouts, and the suggestion box, and the sink) for as long as I have to with some nice, loud, angry music in my ears. Same thing with the bike trainer. I set it up in front my old TV and VCR with Ironman videotapes to break the monotony to some degree. Of course, the next time I go into my "pain cave" will be the 15th time I've seen each of those races, but I'll take whatever I can get.

As I said, it's loud, angry music no matter what the visual stimulus — 90s alternative, hard rock from any era, hip-hop, a little punk. However, I admit to having some dance/electronica in there as well, because it moves and it drives, a nice break from people screaming about slights real and imagined.

So here's what I listened to during today's 1-hour, 6.99-mile, 870-calorie jaunt. I loaded all my workout playlists (Yes, I have those) into my iPod earlier this week and hit shuffle when I started the treadmill...

1. "That's How You Got Killed Before," Elvis Costello with the Metropole Jazz Orchestra

2. "You Can Do It," No Doubt

3. "Blind," Korn

4. "The Choice is Yours (Revisited)," Black Sheep

5. "Teenage Dirtbag," Wheatus

6. "Stop," Jimi Hendrix

7. "Hard Row," Black Keys

8. "Keep on Movin'," DJ David Coleman

9. "Under Your Skin," Luscious Jackson

10. "Jerk It Out," Caesars

11. "Midnight in Her Eyes," Black Keys (think I might have left this album in there)

12. "Corduroy," Pearl Jam

13. "Don't Stop," Brazilian Girls

14. "Can't Stop me Now," Dr. Theopolis

15. "Sugarcube," Yo La Tengo