I suppose I should be more worried about my major life issues such as what the hell am I going to do with a career that isn't working for me. Instead I am thinking about the next triathlon season. I can't stomach the idea of doing another ironman right away or even a half ironman, so I am going to do mostly shorter races such as sprints and olympic distance triathlons and 5k and 10k run races.
Every race involves pain if you are pushing your limits, but each has a different kind of pain. For me, an ironman race has the kind of pain , where the muscles get tired from working at a medium intensity for a very long time. You aren't breathing as hard as in a shorter race. In shorter races, the pain is more intense, but it doesn't last a long time. You feel like there is a vise pressing down on your chest and you can't get enough air. You are going at the highest heart rate you can stand and it hurts. With the pain, however, comes speed.
One of the biggest mistakes I made in racing was assuming that I could have speed without pain. I would run hard, but not go over the line into where the real pain would start. I assumed that I shouldn't push that hard and that my lack of natural ability prevented me from doing better.
This assumption changed when I was training for my second attempt at an ironman. My coach recommended that I work on shorter races to improve my ironman speed and gave me some insane workouts. It took me a while to realize what I could do. Going as hard as I could was a new concept to me, but I found that it worked. I could break barriers that I thought I couldn't. Before I could only run 10 minute miles in a 5k. I found I could now run about 8:34 miles, something I could never do before.
I will never be very fast. But what is fun to me is in breaking those barriers and seeing how far I can go. I can't do this if I am slogging through long workouts necessary for half and full ironmans. I just get tired and can't work very fast. My speed plateaus and doesn't improve. I am happy with my past season this year, but once I got into training for my longer races, my fast speed stopped improving. My best 10k race was in March and after that, I never ran as fast. My bike speed improved over long distances, but my fastest speed stayed where it was after May. I want to see where I can go again.
Eventually, I will do longer races. I want to do a half marathon at the end of the year because I think I can break my old record in this. I may do an ironman in 2011. It took everything I had to finish Ironman Arizona a little before the midnight cut-off, but maybe with time maybe I could finish another ironman like St. George, which seems like it would be much harder than Arizona.
For now, though, I am recovering from this year and dreaming about the next. And wondering what the hell I am going to do with the rest of my life.
Every race involves pain if you are pushing your limits, but each has a different kind of pain. For me, an ironman race has the kind of pain , where the muscles get tired from working at a medium intensity for a very long time. You aren't breathing as hard as in a shorter race. In shorter races, the pain is more intense, but it doesn't last a long time. You feel like there is a vise pressing down on your chest and you can't get enough air. You are going at the highest heart rate you can stand and it hurts. With the pain, however, comes speed.
One of the biggest mistakes I made in racing was assuming that I could have speed without pain. I would run hard, but not go over the line into where the real pain would start. I assumed that I shouldn't push that hard and that my lack of natural ability prevented me from doing better.
This assumption changed when I was training for my second attempt at an ironman. My coach recommended that I work on shorter races to improve my ironman speed and gave me some insane workouts. It took me a while to realize what I could do. Going as hard as I could was a new concept to me, but I found that it worked. I could break barriers that I thought I couldn't. Before I could only run 10 minute miles in a 5k. I found I could now run about 8:34 miles, something I could never do before.
I will never be very fast. But what is fun to me is in breaking those barriers and seeing how far I can go. I can't do this if I am slogging through long workouts necessary for half and full ironmans. I just get tired and can't work very fast. My speed plateaus and doesn't improve. I am happy with my past season this year, but once I got into training for my longer races, my fast speed stopped improving. My best 10k race was in March and after that, I never ran as fast. My bike speed improved over long distances, but my fastest speed stayed where it was after May. I want to see where I can go again.
Eventually, I will do longer races. I want to do a half marathon at the end of the year because I think I can break my old record in this. I may do an ironman in 2011. It took everything I had to finish Ironman Arizona a little before the midnight cut-off, but maybe with time maybe I could finish another ironman like St. George, which seems like it would be much harder than Arizona.
For now, though, I am recovering from this year and dreaming about the next. And wondering what the hell I am going to do with the rest of my life.
Not being a runner, I found your observations about the pain of speed very interesting. I'm thinking that many worthwhile things require us to accept pain of some sort. Certainly, I would encourage you to think about significance, calling, and faith as you look to the future rather than ease and the avoidance of pain.
ReplyDelete8:34 is something to be damn proud of! Keep that up and you'll find it much easier to hold the 10:00 minute pace in IM. Say hello to Bill and Anne for me. They are terrific and will give you all the tools you need to accomplish the goals you set for yourself!
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