SBR Utopia - OPEN (Page 52)

Not offended at all Fred.

Bingo.  For me, the order goes something like:

Family/health, work, sleep, [training somewhere after all that].

I absolutely want to improve at triathlon.  But I never feel guilty or bad for putting one of those other things first at the cost of a workout.

I felt pretty good Friday after the surgery, decent Saturday....but I'm a bit more sore today.  I'm not sure if it's related to the surgery or not, but I was feeling pretty nauseous this morning.  It has since passed, and I'm just taking it easy....forcing myself to stay on crutches all day today and I'll let the doctor and PT let me know what I should be doing come tomorrow afternoon.

Tough choice.  I'd go with 11 cause its consistent

I would probably pick option B.

Ditto - wind really saps my motivation, both running and riding.

To Fred's question about longevity - i concur with some of the opinions, it's just the natural flow of life. The things I am interested in now are very different than what I was interested in 10 years ago. At this point, I'm thankful that I have the spark to want to include fitness in my everyday life and want my children to develop the habit of action. I also think that the beauty of triathlon is I *can* focus on one sport for a while and then still come back to the big game.

Fred also said something interesting about competitiveness (and I paraphrase here) the gist of even if you say you aren't competitive, you are competitive. I think he's right. When I say I'm not competitive I am saying it because I want to justify my feelings for not being at the front of the pack (or not being the best player on the softball team, or not being the best project manager at my job, or the best pastry chef in the kitchen)...by saying I'm not competitive, I'm kind of giving myself permission to not be the best. (How's that for internet honesty?).

Fred - you're right - I *am* competitive. I may say I'm just competing with myself but I am still checking out my placement in races and I still get down if I don't stack up better than I hoped. If I wasn't competitive, I wouldn't be getting out of bed every morning to be a good parent, a good wife, a good employee, a mediocre ;-) triathlete. Maybe this is survival of the fittest boiled down to it's essence. I'm going to have to spend some time thinking about this one. Thank goodness I've got a long run on tap for today.

Have a great day all.

It's funny of the timing you wrote this. I really really really don't want to bring LA into this thread. But the interview had me thinking of many things, and Rappstar published a great article on Tyler and a person over on ST posted this 

"In fact, I think that ALL of us, to some degree at least, are "addicted" to working out. Maybe we're not willing to "dope" but often willing to sacrifice family, friends and social life for that pumped up feeling, the runner's high, the satisfaction of going really hard. The positive feedback is intense, for most. One of the definitions of addiction is to do something despite known harm or negative consequences. We all know of an athlete that has run despite a stress fracture, cycled despite a bad saddle sore, etc. The Ironman athlete that walked the entire marathon due to an injury (I've known at least a few). Sure, they did it to "finish" but at what cost? Sure, Lance doped.... but at what cost"

?I believe that some success, be in winning a race, upping FTP, a first HM.....can trigger a want to do more and it is not hard to get into a pattern of putting too much into this sport. And when you get into that pattern, it is an addiction. After Muskoka for about 30 seconds I thought, "hmmm wonder if maybe one day I could KQ? I can happily say that thought left my head pretty quickly. I would have to give up too much for something with low probability, that could potentially hurt me. At what cost ? To worry about 1 race,....No thank you. Instead I focus on a VDOT, and FTP and a target 16x100 swim pace. Nice clean measures of progress

And just like VDOT as a metric of success in running, look for metrics of success elsewhere in life. This week my youngest got his acceptance to university. 3 out of 3 kids. Bam, another metric down !!! Better than some podium hardware.

Now if I come across as wise or well grounded, then let me correct that. I missed my target TSS for last week by 3 out of 837 so I am up at 5AM for a run. Grounded ? Wise ? Not addicted :-)

4200 meters in the pool this morning for me.  I did a set of 20x100 that I stole from Chris's training last week.

Easy run at -23.

Crossed paths with about 5 runners. All women

Went by a gym, bunch of runners on treadmills. All men

Coincidence ?

Oh, crap. I went to the pool for a swim, and it was closed. It is 18F degrees out, and I said, "Well, I'm not running in that!!!"

So, I am alive. My chest was still buzzing and vibrating last night, but after quite a coughing fit upon waking this morning, I think I am better. Number 2 son missed school all last week and then Friday evening announced, in tears, that his ear hurt. So he's on antibiotics now. He begged me to go to church yesterday because he hadn't been out of the house (except for 30 minutes here and there to sit in the sun out of the wind) for a week. That ended up not being a great idea. We made it through the sermon, but then had to leave. I threw out his sheets (thinking of The Velveteen Rabbit), but laundered all of his blankets and disinfected his pillows. Poor baby. :-(

Anyway, workouts have taken a huge hit this week. I've run a few short easy runs, made it to spin class, went to the pool a couple times, but it's all been so easy and just trying to not lose fitness while also not pushing myself into pneumonia or bronchitis.

I have comments about Fred's competitiveness question, which I will put in a separate post.

ETA: Oh, because of this sickness, I am no longer streaking. Makes me very, very sad. I loved running every day. I changed my avi to reflect the non-streaking. I almost put up a picture of a sloth, because that's how I've been feeling this week.

When I tell people that I am "not competitive," I mean that I am not offering much competition to many people. I'm not out to win the race. If I had that as a goal, I would have to quit now because at my age and fitness ability, that will never happen.

But I am competitive. I don't even like to lose in Battleship to my 6 year old. (He sometimes does beat me, but he cheats. lol)

When racing, I am competing with myself (as many of you have mentioned) -- to beat my time, to feel better or stronger, to make good decisions, to be encouraging to everyone on the course. At one of my races this fall, someone found me after and told me how much he appreciated my encouraging words as we passed each other. That meant a lot, and while the race didn't go the way I had hoped for me time wise, I felt that it had been somewhat successful because I achieved one of my goals.

However, when racing, I am also competing with others. I want to pass people. I hate being passed. I hate it. Really, really, hate it. That doesn't keep it from happening, but I will never be able to say, "Hey. That's okay. I feel fine about that person being faster than I am." Instead, I justify it, "Oh, it's a guy." "Oh, she's 25 and fit." "Oh, she's my age, but she has longer legs." "That one's thinner." "That one's probably been an athlete all of her life."

Maybe some people really aren't competitive. I don't know what that's like. I don't know how they get up in the morning. (That sounds pathetic, I know.) I want to be the best I can as a teacher. As a parent. As a spouse. As a daughter. I am really hard on myself and push myself in all areas of my life. If I see someone do something, in whatever area it is, I think, "Hey. If they can do that, I think I could do better." Saying that is one thing that has pushed me up through education and employment, since I was 25.

KansasMom - 2013-01-21 7:41 AM All that being said, if Marc can get out there and run at -23, I can damn well run at 18. So there! I'm heading out the door.

-23 was Celsius.

it's only -10ish in Fahrenheit :-)

marcag - 2013-01-21 6:59 AM

KansasMom - 2013-01-21 7:41 AM All that being said, if Marc can get out there and run at -23, I can damn well run at 18. So there! I'm heading out the door.

 

-23 was Celsius.

it's only -10ish in Fahrenheit :-)

Now that there is funny.  Accidental motivation

I think what helps you Marc - and what I would like to emulate or copy - is the matter of fact way that you go about your training and your goals for improvements.  They are all tangible and measurable.  That in and of itself takes effort and planning, which I have still not managed to do.  I'm very much stuck in the mode of "just get out there and do stuff".

And I echo your thoughts about KQ.  It's very much the extreme pointy edge of the field that even has a shot at qualifying, and you need to balance what you're willing to sacrfice to just potentially achieve that goal.  I have smaller competitve ambitions, but ambitions nonetheless.  However, I remain at the starting line in terms of putting together how I'm going to actually get there.  To varying degrees, I think a lot of AG athletes fall into this same trap.  I think there is a lot of difference between following a race plan, and having a plan to improve - they are not one in the same in many cases.

And getting to Fred's thoughts on competitive, yes, I'm most certainly competitive. But I try to just keep it to doing the best that I can. I try not to worry about placing, but more in training well and executing well on race day. Sure, I like seeing a strong placement as much as anyone, but I've learned to be ok with just doing well for myself on the day. Comparing myself to everyone else can wear on me after awhile, it'll lead to burn-out. I'm in the earlier parts of the strongest series of age groups, so in order to do well at bigger events I would have to look at being very good for overall placement as first is usually in the mix for 1st overall amateur, if not getting it. That can be fun temporarily, but not longer term.

Even with local things, I have been in contention for overall, but don't really care too much, keeping the focus on how well I did for myself. I was 2 seconds off winning one last year and don't let it get to me. I did what I felt was good for the day and that was that. It so much depends on who shows up that one can go nuts thinking about it too much. I know everyone has people in there area, but around here there are 2 Zoot Ultra guys in my age-group (teammates of Bryan Dunn) that could show up at any time. Plus a number of other speedsters. If I hop right over to Wisconsin I might run into Scott Bowe (sentania on ST) who was 1st amateur IMAZ 2011, or Joe Kurian who might be even faster (1st amateur IMWI). Then pros like Thomas Gerlach or Blake Becker could (and have) decide to jump in anywhere. Or former pro Will Smith might still be as fast as them (52:57 Oly bike split, 1:50 finish time). All of them either are or have recently been in my age-group. One could easily go nuts without some perspective.

marcag - 2013-01-21 7:59 AM

KansasMom - 2013-01-21 7:41 AM All that being said, if Marc can get out there and run at -23, I can damn well run at 18. So there! I'm heading out the door.

 

-23 was Celsius.

it's only -10ish in Fahrenheit :-)

It's not going to be much warmer here today and tomorrow (single digit highs, ~0 or less for the low). Actually debating whether I should go out or go to the treadmill. I'm running after riding, so I'll have been sweating for a couple hours. Even with a change of clothes, some spots have felt hurtful cold at times when it's 15-20F. When it's just a run I'm fine though.

marcag - 2013-01-21 7:59 AM

KansasMom - 2013-01-21 7:41 AM All that being said, if Marc can get out there and run at -23, I can damn well run at 18. So there! I'm heading out the door.

 

-23 was Celsius.

it's only -10ish in Fahrenheit :-)

Oh, "only." I feel so much better.

My run was actually wonderful, even a little too warm. I almost always dress for wind, and there was none this morning.