I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with friends and loved ones. I sure did, surrounded by my family.
Not only was yesterday the day after Christmas, and Boxing Day if you're reading this from Canada. Exactly six months from yesterday, June 26, is Ironman Day. And exactly six months from this very minute I will be luxuriating in rest and recovery!
In the meantime, my training plan is coming into focus and I'll share that with you very soon. I'm also getting ready for my first race of the season--a 1/2-marathon in Miami on January 30th. The running mileage is increasing every week--I'm up to 9 miles for my long run--and I'm feeling good. I love an early-season race. It keeps me off the couch in the dead of winter. Unlike many of you east of the Mississippi, we have been blessed with balmy temps and sunny skies this December. It unfortunately didn't make for a white Christmas, but it does make for nice running weather. (If you did get hit with the blizzard this past weekend, I hope you're all safe and warm.)
I met with my triathlon coach this morning to discuss the final details of my overall Ironman training plan. As I sat there staring at the multi-colored spreadsheet packed with numbers and training jargon, I took comfort knowing that even if I don't know what I'm getting myself into, she does. The big picture plan, I can deal with. The details are what send me into hyperventilation. She's there to give me the details, to tell me whether to focus on endurance or speed, and to talk me off the ledge should I need it. On my way out, we laughed that I'm about due for a meltdown. I've been lucky--2010 has seen many ups and few downs. And if I'm being realistic, I should expect a serious challenge to my luck come May. This very long training period is necessary not just for physical preparation--but also, and perhaps more importantly, for mental, psychological, and emotional preparation.
There's not much else to report at this time. I just wanted to poke my head in and say hi and Merry Christmas!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Swimming, biking, and running from my past
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. ~ Nelson Mandela
Without going into details, I was having dental work done when 17-year-old Jen decided to show up. Dental work that I haven't had done since, well, I was 17. My mini-meltdown during the procedure was clear evidence of how much my self-concept and happiness are tied to my smile. Among other things, I see myself as someone who is happy and cheerful and who wants to see the sunshine in people and things. This part of my self is expressed, naturally, through my smile. So when my smile gets taken apart, I suppose part of my self-concept does, too.
I had a lot of time to think, sitting in the dentist's chair. I thought mostly about how I'm at once the same as and very different from my 17-year-old self. It wasn't until later that night that it hit me. I swim, bike, and run for many reasons: because I love achieving goals, because it helps me manifest my self-concept, and for the sheer enjoyment of it. Yes, all of that I knew. What became clear is that I also am swimming, biking, and running away from who I don't want to be--that shy, easily embarrassed, not-really-good-at-anything 17-year-old. And I'm at peace with that, with carrying forward parts of my old self that still serve my purpose and changing those aspects of me that don't.
Thank you for letting me share.
Happy Holidays everyone!
Saturday, December 18, 2010
What (I think) it takes
Many people ask me how one trains for Ironman. "Oh my gosh" they say. "How on earth can you do that?" I often wonder the same thing! I don't know exactly how one trains for Ironman, having never done one before. But I have done enough endurance events to be able to make some educated guesses.
Yes, the training plan is necessary. My plan is currently in the works and it will prepare me for the sport-specific demands of swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles in under 17 hours. The other ways I'm training for Ironman are more "invisible." Swim/bike/run requisites aside, here is my opinion on what it takes to do Ironman, along with my self-grades in each area.
A belief that the journey is the destination. My goal for Ironman is not just the obvious one of simply finishing. A significant part of my goal is to live the experience of training and preparing for something so big. My veteran Ironman friend Heather told me that training for this monster is a year-long process. From the day I signed up to when I earn my finisher's medal, it will have been a full year. And I intend to fully embrace every single second of this year. (Grade: B+. Even though I have always favored process over task, I can become overly-focused on the end point, on checking the achievement off my list. So I give myself something less than a perfect grade on this one.)
Executing my race plan. I'm a natural born planner. I love a plan...give me a plan for shopping, for work, for social engagements, for anything! I even plan my free time. I'm not kidding. So when everything I read told me that Ironman must have a race plan, I celebrated. (I'll share my race plan with you later, once I've actually figured it out.) I'm also not too shabby with implementing and following through on plans. What I'm not great at is adapting to necessary changes to the plan. I have been known to be spontaneous and to change direction mid-stream, but I need to whine about it first. (Grades: A for planning and for executing the plan; D for adapting to changes.)
A love of a challenge. Eleanor Roosevelt said "Do one thing every day that scares you." Even though I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone many times, I'm far from the most risky person I know. I avoid heights. I take the safest route down the ski hill. I can't look over the edge of the cliff. I can't even look out the window of a tall building without my palms sweating profusely. I once took a drive up Mt. Evans (a death-defying drive along a teeny-tiny crumbling road up to 13000 feet) and my feet sweated. And yet give me an athletic challenge and I'll take it. Okay, not all challenges. I'm sounding tough. If it involves riding a bike, though, it's a no-brainer. So it's a good thing for me that the Ironman bike leg (112 miles) is 80% of the entire 140.6 miles--it especially makes the run more tolerable. (Grade: B)
Tough mental fitness. I have to admit: I sometimes find the anticipation of an athletic challenge more exciting than doing it. The idea of a marathon jazzes me. And yet 18 miles into a training run, I have suffered panic attacks. Ditto for long rides. Crying on a climb really screws up my breathing. I can see an evolution, though, in my mental toughness. Things changed significantly for me when I moved to Colorado and my choices were to either hang with my tough friends or stay home. I chose to hang. Oh yeah, I still have work to do. This work mostly involves my self-talk, which I've written about before. Part of my Ironman race plan includes mantras I can pull out when the going gets tough. I suspect I'll be relying on my mantras a LOT. (Grade: B/B-)
Efficiency of movement. A race is a contest in getting from one point to another in as little time as possible. And in Ironman that means continuous forward motion for many many hours. Veering off course on the swim, or zig-zagging from one side of the road to the other on the bike or run, uses precious energy (see below). If I happen to encounter a roadblock or lose sight of shore on the swim, I need to be able to correct my path as quickly and with as little effort as possible. I'm preparing for this with some fun strength training this winter--exercises designed to improve my balance, lateral movement, and explosive power. (Grade: C. I loooooooove going forward. I don't enjoy so much anything that takes me backward or sideways.)
Using energy economically. Completing endurance events is not unlike Christmas shopping: if I blow my reserves in the first store, I have nothing left for last-minute gift ideas or people I forgot to buy for. Likewise, if I go out too fast or too hard early in the race, I might as well, at best, kiss my time goal goodbye. At worst, I risk a DNF (did not finish). Training is a daily exercise in energy budgeting. It involves not only wise pacing but also eating well before I'm hungry and drinking well before I'm thirsty. That's hard! I've spent the past four decades doing exactly the opposite: eating and drinking only after my body tells me to. If I eat and drink like that during Ironman, it'll be too late. (Grade: C-. I need major improvement on this one. Apparently, I have not learned from my mistakes. Each time I run I'm convinced I can keep up the blistering pace I set at the start when I'm fresh and excited.)
A heightened awareness of my body. Anticipating and preventing hunger and thirst is only part of what I'm aware of when training and racing. I mentally monitor things like my heart rate, breathing, perceived exertion, and internal temperature. And I've learned to tell the difference between what's within my normal range and what's not. I've also become pretty accurate at predicting not only my overall finishing time, but my times for the swim, bike, and run. And yes, I have time goals for Ironman, but I'm not sharing them. :-) At least not just yet. (Grade: A)
With the right training and preparation, my grades will improve. They may suffer temporarily, though, as Steve and I make our way through the 600 dozen Christmas cookies my mom sent. Thanks Mom! The spice cookies are particularly impossible to resist!
Yes, the training plan is necessary. My plan is currently in the works and it will prepare me for the sport-specific demands of swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles in under 17 hours. The other ways I'm training for Ironman are more "invisible." Swim/bike/run requisites aside, here is my opinion on what it takes to do Ironman, along with my self-grades in each area.
A belief that the journey is the destination. My goal for Ironman is not just the obvious one of simply finishing. A significant part of my goal is to live the experience of training and preparing for something so big. My veteran Ironman friend Heather told me that training for this monster is a year-long process. From the day I signed up to when I earn my finisher's medal, it will have been a full year. And I intend to fully embrace every single second of this year. (Grade: B+. Even though I have always favored process over task, I can become overly-focused on the end point, on checking the achievement off my list. So I give myself something less than a perfect grade on this one.)
Executing my race plan. I'm a natural born planner. I love a plan...give me a plan for shopping, for work, for social engagements, for anything! I even plan my free time. I'm not kidding. So when everything I read told me that Ironman must have a race plan, I celebrated. (I'll share my race plan with you later, once I've actually figured it out.) I'm also not too shabby with implementing and following through on plans. What I'm not great at is adapting to necessary changes to the plan. I have been known to be spontaneous and to change direction mid-stream, but I need to whine about it first. (Grades: A for planning and for executing the plan; D for adapting to changes.)
A love of a challenge. Eleanor Roosevelt said "Do one thing every day that scares you." Even though I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone many times, I'm far from the most risky person I know. I avoid heights. I take the safest route down the ski hill. I can't look over the edge of the cliff. I can't even look out the window of a tall building without my palms sweating profusely. I once took a drive up Mt. Evans (a death-defying drive along a teeny-tiny crumbling road up to 13000 feet) and my feet sweated. And yet give me an athletic challenge and I'll take it. Okay, not all challenges. I'm sounding tough. If it involves riding a bike, though, it's a no-brainer. So it's a good thing for me that the Ironman bike leg (112 miles) is 80% of the entire 140.6 miles--it especially makes the run more tolerable. (Grade: B)
Tough mental fitness. I have to admit: I sometimes find the anticipation of an athletic challenge more exciting than doing it. The idea of a marathon jazzes me. And yet 18 miles into a training run, I have suffered panic attacks. Ditto for long rides. Crying on a climb really screws up my breathing. I can see an evolution, though, in my mental toughness. Things changed significantly for me when I moved to Colorado and my choices were to either hang with my tough friends or stay home. I chose to hang. Oh yeah, I still have work to do. This work mostly involves my self-talk, which I've written about before. Part of my Ironman race plan includes mantras I can pull out when the going gets tough. I suspect I'll be relying on my mantras a LOT. (Grade: B/B-)
Efficiency of movement. A race is a contest in getting from one point to another in as little time as possible. And in Ironman that means continuous forward motion for many many hours. Veering off course on the swim, or zig-zagging from one side of the road to the other on the bike or run, uses precious energy (see below). If I happen to encounter a roadblock or lose sight of shore on the swim, I need to be able to correct my path as quickly and with as little effort as possible. I'm preparing for this with some fun strength training this winter--exercises designed to improve my balance, lateral movement, and explosive power. (Grade: C. I loooooooove going forward. I don't enjoy so much anything that takes me backward or sideways.)
Using energy economically. Completing endurance events is not unlike Christmas shopping: if I blow my reserves in the first store, I have nothing left for last-minute gift ideas or people I forgot to buy for. Likewise, if I go out too fast or too hard early in the race, I might as well, at best, kiss my time goal goodbye. At worst, I risk a DNF (did not finish). Training is a daily exercise in energy budgeting. It involves not only wise pacing but also eating well before I'm hungry and drinking well before I'm thirsty. That's hard! I've spent the past four decades doing exactly the opposite: eating and drinking only after my body tells me to. If I eat and drink like that during Ironman, it'll be too late. (Grade: C-. I need major improvement on this one. Apparently, I have not learned from my mistakes. Each time I run I'm convinced I can keep up the blistering pace I set at the start when I'm fresh and excited.)
A heightened awareness of my body. Anticipating and preventing hunger and thirst is only part of what I'm aware of when training and racing. I mentally monitor things like my heart rate, breathing, perceived exertion, and internal temperature. And I've learned to tell the difference between what's within my normal range and what's not. I've also become pretty accurate at predicting not only my overall finishing time, but my times for the swim, bike, and run. And yes, I have time goals for Ironman, but I'm not sharing them. :-) At least not just yet. (Grade: A)
With the right training and preparation, my grades will improve. They may suffer temporarily, though, as Steve and I make our way through the 600 dozen Christmas cookies my mom sent. Thanks Mom! The spice cookies are particularly impossible to resist!
Friday, December 10, 2010
I cannot go to school today...
...said little Peggy Ann McKay. I have the measles and the mumps, a gash, a rash, and purple bumps. Remember that poem by Shel Silverstein? It swims in my head this time of year. Yes, little Peggy magically healed once she realized it was Saturday, but her list of ailments sometimes echoes what I hear from others nowadays. 'Tis the season of germ-trading, staying home so as not to infect others, cancelling social engagements because constant sniffling at the dinner table is a real buzz-kill. This was my week. What began as a simple, not-uncommon dry throat on Tuesday evening evolved into a full-blown sore throat and fatigue by Wednesday morning.
No one likes being sick. Everyone complains, wishes it wasn't happening. Many of you, though, handle it much better than I do. I become nearly impossible to live with when the slightest tickle invades my throat: I stomp around the house huffing and puffing about the injustice of it all. I awfulize the situation: I'll never be well again, I moan pathetically. No no, you all have Christmas without me--I don't want to get you sick, too. I might as well cancel Ironman because I can't train like this. Woe is me!
Blessedly, this does not happen very often. In fact, the last time it did was 2005. I remember it distinctly--I literally could not move off the couch for a whole week in Jaunary. This time around, I can move off the couch, and already the evil germs are vacating the residence they've taken up in my body.
Phew. Crisis averted.
The bummer in all of this, like many of you experience, is that life goes on regardless of how we feel. My clients' needs don't go away just because I'm sick. Time doesn't stop and wait for me to get well. Because work could not give this week, something else had to. And that something else was my workout schedule. GASP. When I realized Wednesday morning that my body would absolutely not allow me to hit the gym before work, I sulked. I began to mentally calculate the fitness I would lose if I skipped Wednesday...and Thursday...and, gulp, the weekend, too? This panic lasted for all of about two minutes. Because once I let go of the need to adhere to my training plan despite it being the last thing my body wanted and needed, I fell immediately back to sleep. That extra hour of sleep Wednesday morning did more for me than the strength training session I had planned.
So guess what? I can back off! Lo and behold, things do not fall apart with a missed workout or two. Ironman training is an exercise in long-term thinking and big-picture planning. Sacrificing next week's health for this week's workouts makes zero sense, even this early in my training. I'm convinced that nothing happens without reason, that there are no coincidences. I was exposed to this bug because it was the only way for my body to get what it needed this week: to chill out.
I hope you are staying healthy and strong this germ season. Take care of yourselves, everyone.
No one likes being sick. Everyone complains, wishes it wasn't happening. Many of you, though, handle it much better than I do. I become nearly impossible to live with when the slightest tickle invades my throat: I stomp around the house huffing and puffing about the injustice of it all. I awfulize the situation: I'll never be well again, I moan pathetically. No no, you all have Christmas without me--I don't want to get you sick, too. I might as well cancel Ironman because I can't train like this. Woe is me!
Blessedly, this does not happen very often. In fact, the last time it did was 2005. I remember it distinctly--I literally could not move off the couch for a whole week in Jaunary. This time around, I can move off the couch, and already the evil germs are vacating the residence they've taken up in my body.
Phew. Crisis averted.
The bummer in all of this, like many of you experience, is that life goes on regardless of how we feel. My clients' needs don't go away just because I'm sick. Time doesn't stop and wait for me to get well. Because work could not give this week, something else had to. And that something else was my workout schedule. GASP. When I realized Wednesday morning that my body would absolutely not allow me to hit the gym before work, I sulked. I began to mentally calculate the fitness I would lose if I skipped Wednesday...and Thursday...and, gulp, the weekend, too? This panic lasted for all of about two minutes. Because once I let go of the need to adhere to my training plan despite it being the last thing my body wanted and needed, I fell immediately back to sleep. That extra hour of sleep Wednesday morning did more for me than the strength training session I had planned.
So guess what? I can back off! Lo and behold, things do not fall apart with a missed workout or two. Ironman training is an exercise in long-term thinking and big-picture planning. Sacrificing next week's health for this week's workouts makes zero sense, even this early in my training. I'm convinced that nothing happens without reason, that there are no coincidences. I was exposed to this bug because it was the only way for my body to get what it needed this week: to chill out.
I hope you are staying healthy and strong this germ season. Take care of yourselves, everyone.
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