The Rollercoaster
This morning, during my walk to work after a pretty good ride on the trainer, I couldn’t stop questioning this process and what I’m doing. I spent that time (and parts of my day since) asking myself what it’s all about and what I’m doing it all for. Some of this comes out of my thinking about the commentary about Badwater, some has been inspired by reading Chris Bergland’s upcoming book, “The Athlete’s Way”, but I’ve got this nagging thought asking me whether the sense of achievement I should feel on the night of July 22 is worth the price I’m paying to get there?
In the “The Athlete’s Way”, Chris discusses finding joy and happiness in physical exertion and he spends a fair amount of time writing about finding that zone when you workout where the effort of training just becomes natural and effortless – Chris calls it “a state of flow” or, he coined the term, “Superfluidity,” for when it’s taken to an extreme, and it’s similar to what’s usually referred to as “being in the zone.” I know that feeling and I’m getting to know it better every day. When I’m training, once I find my comfort zone between not working hard enough and working too hard, I can melt into my workout and the time slips by and to some degree, I stop noticing my surroundings. It certainly doesn’t happen during every workout, but it regularly happens while I’m running and is happening more and more during swims and rides – I felt it this morning on the trainer and it happened yesterday during my swim. The main set of yesterday’s swim was 3 sets of 6×100. The first couple were easy, the next few were tough, but by the end of the first set, I was just on auto-pilot; I lost track of time and instead of timing each 100, I was just going by feel. After each set of six, I checked my cumulative time and I was pretty much spot on for the pace I wanted. A similar thing happened during this morning’s ride: after warming up and getting comfortable, I just started rolling, rarely noticing how long it had been or how much time I had left to ride. Most times that I checked, I was solidly in heart rate zone 3, exactly where I wanted to be. My mind was blank – as Chris would probably put it, my down/animal brain (the cerebellum) had taken over. The key to all this is that that is my happy place. When I’m in that place, I can feel the why and the how about all that I’m doing. That’s my high – all those neurons are firing and the right neurochemicals are coursing through my brain. The problem is that that high wears off quickly after I’m done training and I need to work on finding a similar kind of feeling for the rest of my day, especially those times that I’m feeling tired or bored or lonely. Maybe I need to react to my daily stresses in a way similar to how I deal with training “stresses” – when I’m swimming and I feel like my stroke is “off”, I analyze it and fix it then and there, if possible; I try not to dwell on any larger issues about the stroke or what could happen. Applying all this to my life might mean treating each minute or hour as its own, and forgetting about what or where or how I’ll be in the future. It won’t be easy to do, but nothing worthwhile ever is, right?
Above, I wrote that I’m asking myself about the price paid to get across that finish line. What “price” is that? To be clear, I’m not so worried about the toll this is taking on my body – at this point, I feel I can handle that; I may come out on the other side a little worse for the wear, but pushing myself like this physically feels natural and if it weren’t this, it would have to be something else – probably more dangerous! It’s all the strain and stress that the training volume and side effects have on the rest of my life – psychologically, professionally, financially, socially with my friends and wife. For better or worse, I’m not the same person I was 8 months ago when I signed up for this madness. I really don’t drink alcohol anymore and I try my best to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night, both of which are good things in theory, but it affects my desire to go out at night with friends or to stay up late with Elizabeth. Also, nearly every free hour of my days are filled by training, or preparation for training or cooling down after training. This is another limiting factor on my social life and on my career, or more correctly, career search. Finally, it’s just friggin’ expensive. The bike was one thing, but all the other costs – the gear, the clothes, the supplies, the travel to races, the hotels. It all adds up and I’m not feeling real flush right now anyway. But, and this is the big BUT, to trade any of the above would go against this feeling of “who I am” right now and as this training becomes a part of me, I can’t go against my nature, regardless of the logic of making that “choice”.
What’s the lesson here? I think the first part of the lesson is that as I get more comfortably physically with the training, I need to think hard about its emotional effects and try to understand the psychological changes I’m going through. The second part of the lesson is that while I work on understanding and controlling it, I need to be prepared for ups and downs – even if they’re stacked right on top of each other – because for every down there will be another up.
Sorry for the rant.
Swim – March 19
Distance: 3,000 yards
Time: 1:04
Strength Training – March 19
Time: 30 minutes
Bike – March 20
Time: 1:30
Average heart rate: 125
Indoor ride
Run – March 20
Distance: 3.7 miles
Time: 30 minutes
Average heart rate: 143
Treadmill run