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.

OT: Nothing in particular

Once again, I've gone quite some time between entries. One reason/excuse is my frustration with my triathlon-ing. I can't seem to motivate myself to get out there every day, so I'm wondering if I should make my goals a little more realistic, i.e. give up on Kona and Boston and just do a few races for the sake of finishing. Or just try to do a triathlon and marathon in each of the 50 states without regard for performance.

The other reason/excuse is my love/hate relationship with writing, and I've been leaning toward the latter lately. The last magazine hit the streets a month late, and I did every bit of writing except for two of the 20 or so stories, so I was about sick of it. And then another magazine has come up, and again, I have no help with the writing. Guess $200 a story isn't acceptable, even in this buyers' market of an economy. So I really don't care much for writing professionally, let alone as a hobby, and I daydream of finding a nice widget factory in need of an overeducated widget maker for $10 an hour.

It looks like I'm back on the market again, if I was off the market in the first place. Second straight relationship where it seems I was taking it more seriously than she was. Live and learn, eh? Long-distance isn't for everyone, no doubt about that, and apparently it wasn't for her. I was willing to give it a shot but I respect her feelings and won't press the issue.

Finally, I offer my thesis on a mid-30s man dating in a college town. Basically, it's impossible, and here's why:

• First, let's rule out the coeds. They're batshit crazy, and I'd seriously question the psychological makeup of an 18-22-year-old woman who wants to get down with a 36-year-old man. There's no amount of agreement about the, uh, nature of the relationship that would clear things up, so there's no point in even trying. I'm sure Steve McNair would confirm my theory but he's not around anymore, thanks to... a 20-year-old woman who offed herself after sending him to the great gig in the sky.

• The next group of women to rule out is the post-grads (post-docs, grad students, professors). But first, an anecdote. A friend of mine living in Lawrence, Kan., was dating this guy she'd met at the campus there, and after five months together he got in to law school at the University of Michigan. She told me, in so few words, that she was not moving from her home state unless there was a ring. I told her to be careful what she wished for, because she might get it. Sure enough, she got her ring, they went to A-squared, and lived happily ever after.

The point here is that no one comes to Laramie for post-graduate studies without a significant other because everyone knows what I know — it's a dating wasteland, unless you swim in the university pool, which might or might not be the best idea. Men can't bring their significant others without a permanent arrangement, and women won't come here without a dude in tow, whether permanently arranged or not; a smart guy will follow a smart girl anywhere, regardless of his own prospects for employment.

• So that leaves the townies. Like most small, rural, college towns in red states, there's a bit of resentment toward the campus among the townies, never mind what the campus means to the town in terms of culture, population, and economy. So even if I did chat up a townie woman in some situation, she'd probably bolt upon finding out I work at the university.

Further, at my age single women tend to have kids, and I'm not raising someone else's kid. In small towns like this one, there's something wrong with you if you haven't married by 25 (maybe younger here in sort-of Mormon country) and procreated by 30, so the woman do those before realizing the lack of wisdom in that course of action. Anyway, in my experience the "real" dad is not too far off, and I want nothing to do with that drama. Single moms are tough, admirable, courageous people, and I have nothing but respect for that path, but I wouldn't go that way myself.

So there you have it. I've pondered this quite a bit on many a run and ride (or walk home from work in the dark), and this is the first chance I've taken to put it on a screen. Really, it doesn't concern me that I've iced my love life in the name of a (sigh) decent job, but if I had any desire for a love life I wouldn't have moved here because I knew what I was getting in to, notwithstanding my friends' imagery of "all that young college-girl [action]." Half-Acre Gym is indeed like a museum — nice to look at what's there, but touch at your own risk."

Not as long in coming

Oddly, days after I updated you on my swim season and marital status, I did my first triathlon of the season, the Razor City Splash and Dash. Nervously, I watched the weather forecast throughout the week for lovely Gillette, Wyoming, about four-and-a-half hours north and east of here. A guy on the Facebook triathlon group said it snowed for last year's race, and it did snow in the days preceding. By the time I showed up at the Campbell County Aquatic Center it was in the 30s and sunny, and the only snow was in the shadows of the trees.

At any rate, I ended up wearing more clothes for this race than I ever have. We swam in the nice, warm aquatic center, where I covered two Wyoming girls' state swim meets a few years back. It was cool to swim in this pool where I'd seen one of the most exciting sporting events of my 12 years in newspapers. For some reason, the pool was like bath water, not at all conducive to swimming competitively, only recreationally. Yuck.

The pool is Olympic-sized, 50 meters by 25 yards. Though the high school short-course (25-yard) season ended a while back, the pool still was configured for 21 25-yard lanes; the summer club season uses "long course," or the 50-meter configuration. If they'd taken the bulkhead out (a narrow plank, about 18 inches wide and 4 feet deep, separates the eight main competition lanes from the rest of the pool), they'd have had another one. So there was plenty of room for all 70 of us. I swam circles in a lane with two other guys, and they were kind enough to let me go first after watching me turn a couple of warmup laps. I must look intimidating.

The race started after about a 20-minute meeting, during which I heard the following: "There's no snow, so we lucked out on that." Now, the swim was 900 yards, which is as close to a half-mile (880 yards) as you can get in a 25-yard pool. Each competitor was responsible for counting his own laps, all 36 of them, or 18 (down and back equals one) if you prefer, which I do, because it's a lower number. Didn't stop me from miscounting. I do it in my workouts, too, and I end up looking at the clock to try and figure out where I am in a long swim. Saturday was no exception, as I hit the wall at an unacceptably fast time for what I thought was 18 laps. I said out loud, "That can't be right," and did another 50 yards. The time was far more realistic.

In the prerace meeting, the race director recommended putting some clothes on before running outside into the 30-degree chill, wet and semi-naked. So I put on tights and an UnderArmour mock turtleneck while frantically drying myself. To put it in perspective, I spent 3.5 percent of my total time of the race in the first transition, trying to put dry clothes on a damp body, before running outside.

At my bike I added socks, gloves, a skullcap, my helmet, shades, and shoes to the ensemble. I mounted up and headed out for my first ride on my new bike. The 15-mile course was an out-and-back into the countryside north of Gillette, not as far as Montana but I felt like I could see it from there; the Montana-Wyoming border is 51 miles north of Gillette. Now, I knew a bunch of people passed me in transition, but I figured I could get them back when it came down to actually competing. The goal was to not let anyone pass me on the ride, though that didn't get to the turnaround, as one guy passed me. Still, the ride went well save for a balky derailleur that will be dealt with before the next race. It was a rare course that took us downhill on the way out and uphill on the way back, as Gillette sits on a plateau. That's fine with me, as I can spin up hills and still have something left for the run.

Which I did, to a point. I ditched the bike and my tights in transition, as the tights would have cooked me on the run. I set my sights on the lead chick and the guy who passed me on the bike, but I got passed one more time on the run. Those three people were in front of me, in view, the entire 5-kilometer run, but I couldn't muster the jump necessary to catch them. So I pushed as best I could, didn't get passed again beyond the first mile, and even had a small kick at the end.

Lo and behold, I won my age group and finished fifth overall. My time was six minutes behind the overall winner, and the three people I mentioned were within a minute of me, so I could have gotten second overall if I had a little more speed. Alas, that's why I do sprints, to enter a different kind of pain and see what kind of speed I have. Furthermore, my placing was the result of a weak field. Had to be. No way I'm at the top of my age group, even in a small state like Wyoming, and I expect to get stomped at the Cheyenne Sprint later this summer.

In the meantime, it's on to the Boise Half-Ironman (I refuse to call it a 70.3 as the World Triathlon Corporation wishes). I'll swim twice a week and skate on the residual fitness from the season, while hitting the bike and run as hard as I can. I neglected them for too long during swimming (a 22:42 5K is good enough to win my age group, ugh), and I'll have to address those issues before heading up to Idaho.

Long time coming

When last you left your protagonist, he was bitching about a coach yelling at him, and bitching about the weather. Not surprisingly, things haven't changed much in more than two months.

Let's see, since the Loveland Sweetheart Invitational, I took a trip to Portland to see a special lady-friend, who remains very special to me. While there I rode my bike with her three times, got in three really strong runs, and three decent swims (the swims were solo, as getting this chick in the water is like pulling teeth). And we had some fun in the city. So I like the woman, I like the city, and I'm starting to see why there's such turnover in this department. Hmm...

I did learn that I could get faster in the water. Six weeks after the Loveland Sweetheart Invitational, I competed in the Colorado state masters meet, my first time competing in a state meet of any kind. That's because I didn't have to qualify; all I had to do was fill out a form and write a check (my kind of championship). So you see my times below from the Loveland meet. Now compare them with the COMSA state results, bearing in mind that I was shaved and tapered. I was not thrilled to have to skip the 1,650-yard freestyle for a work assignment, but I was thrilled to finish the 400-yard individual medley for the first time. Everything after that was easy, though I got smoked in the age-group standings. A loving, dear friend pointed out the difference between swimming in a triathlon with people who dabble in swimming, and swimming in a masters meet with swimmers who dabble in triathlon. Point taken.

The next task was to address my neglected cycling and running, which has happened all too infrequently since the first of the year. And not much has changed in the four weeks since the state meet. I had another couple weeks of swim practices, but told the coaches I'd be in and out because of my newfound desire to run and bike — at least when the weather allowed it. Seriously, my training plan is at the mercy of the dodgy spring weather here on the high plains, meaning if it's not snowing or unmercifully windy I'm out running or cycling. Bad way to do it, but training here is what it is. And I'm still out of shape.

Last weekend I went to St. George, Utah, to watch the inaugural Ironman St. George. Normally, it's mid-80s and windy there this time of year but race day was cold (mid-60s) and calm. My kind of day! Meagen competed and finished with no problems, despite her prophecies of doom and gloom and truncated training process. Long story short, the course is an absolute bear, which guarantees the Ironman masses will stay away and the marketers who run the WTC won't renew past the initial five years. Nonetheless, I was proud of her and her Phoenix crew for getting it done. Tough day all around.

The day after I attended my second awards luncheon/dinner (the first was Ironman Canada, when I happened to be in town and had nothing to do). First thing I noticed was the number of age-group winners/Kona qualifiers from northern parts of the world — Salt Lake City, Denver, DeForest, Wisconsin; Colchester, Vermont. Either a lot of people have friends in the south for training weekends, or a lot of people are exponentially mentally tougher than I. I'm opting for the latter. I told Meagen that means I have no excuse for not training through the brutal Wyoming winters, and she reminded me of it a few more times before we parted ways.

During the 12-hour drive home (took the scenic route through the Colorado Rockies), I wondered if I really have what it takes to achieve that ludicrous goal of qualifying. I ask this question now as the morning's snow melts and my bike sits on the trainer, waiting for me when I get home. And I'll continue to ask it throughout the year as I come up with more and more excuses not to train.

Oops, I did it again

I swam too fast. Did that last semester and the coach dialed up my intervals. Despite having taken several weeks sort of off, I was faster in Saturday's team time trials than I was in October.

That includes a 2:23 200 freestyle, 2:37 in the 200 IM, 1:03 for the 100 freestyle, and a 27.1 for the 50 freestyle. If you're not familiar with swimming speed, don't worry. I'm not in the same area code as the Olympians, nor am I as fast as I was in high school. I determined I'd have to give up everything else to be that fast again, and that doesn't appeal to me right now. But both coaches said I'll be doing harder workouts from here on out, for better or worse.

It's fun being a competitive swimmer again.

Start the madness

You'll notice the schedule for 2010 has been posted. That's to signal that I start training officially tomorrow. The training program of my own design starts with a swim-heavy period to accommodate the masters swimming group; including Saturday's time trials I'm doing three meets this winter before the Razor City Splash and Dash in Gillette. That includes the Colorado State Masters Championships, where I plan on doing the 200-yard butterfly, the 400 individual medley, and the 1650 freestyle to earn a cool t-shirt. No one said I wasn't motivated, right?

Oh yeah, there's a t-shirt at stake for August's Rattlesnake Triathlon, the "Crazy Back-to-Back Challenge." I've done an Olympic-distance and a sprint in consecutive weeks, but consecutive days is something new. Probably no different than consecutive big training days. We'll see.

There are three half-Ironmans on the docket, the better to gain some speed and strength before going long again next year. The Boise race might prove to be my undoing if the winter persists beyond April, but I'm hoping to have a good swim and ride there, since those two disciplines are least affected by the weather. Believe it or not, it's easy to get on the trainer when my world remains covered in snow, and since I train in the pool anyway I'll be ready for the first half of the race. The second half is mostly to check off the state of Montana, and what better race than a two-year-old half-Ironman with less than 50 entrants? I did Harvest Moon in 2003 and it remains my fastest half-Ironman overall, and though the course has changed since that's one PR I want to wipe off the record books.

Now, you'll notice I'm doing the Portland Marathon four weeks after the Harvest Moon Triathlon. That will be an interesting balancing trick, to mix training for a fast half-Ironman with training for a decent enough marathon. I said I wanted to go for a PR for the half-Ironman distance but I never said at which race I would attempt it. It might be at the Headwaters triathlon, which will be followed by six weeks of run-heavy tri training before four weeks of really heavy run training. The plan is to do a 15-16-mile run up in the mountains every week starting in May, then an 18-miler the week before Harvest Moon, then a 20-miler the week after, followed by a three-week taper. I'll need to rely on muscle memory from previous marathons, as this won't be an ideal training cycle.

Then again, if I PR in Portland, and manage to push myself in the process, I'll throw everything I know about running out the window and train the same way again for the next marathon. And if I end up sustaining debilitating injuries, well, I heard about an opening in the International Couch Potato Union.

Square One, Part 3,620

One of these days I'll learn I can't take months off at my age. Until then, I'll be content to:

• Crap out on the bike after an hour or so, though doing climbing drills and yanking my rear axle out of the trainer doesn't help matters.

• Barely get three miles done on the treadmill at 8:34 per mile, when a year ago I was knocking down 3 miles at 7:27 pace. Granted, last year I had a bit of a head start with marathon training but it's still tough to know how far behind my pace I am.

• Destroy my elbow ligaments in a 1,900-yard swim workout. Serves me right for really neglecting my swimming during a six-week holiday hiatus. I returned to the masters team tonight and it kicked my ass. I'm supposed to ride the bike again tomorrow but I feel like I need to get two swims in this week no matter what. And if I swim I won't get home until nearly 8 and I damn sure won't feel like waiting another hour for dinner to be ready. Decisions, decisions.

The next decision I make will be writing a training plan that involves no time off after my "A" races in the fall. This crap is ridiculous.