Will I be ready?

Posted by on March 16, 2008 in Training

Man, this is the question that I keep asking myself. Today was the first serious test of my mental strength. I saw the dark side today, but despite all my bitching, I can actually suffer rather well.

This week, I had the good fortune of being able to work from home since the car is in the shop. I surprised myself with how productive I was despite wanting badly to laze on the couch. I did take advantage of the great mid-day weather and did my training, so that to me was the real perk. As the weather gets nicer, I’m going to finally be able to put in the increasing mileage and not have to do so with layers and frigid fingers and face.

I don’t know about other folks, but I am riddled with self-doubt. I can make excuses about why I’m not better-prepared till you fall asleep, but the reality is that I committed to doing this and I simply can’t back down. There’s no luck in Ironman; you don’t get a friendly roll and you can’t fake your way through it. It’s an obscenely long amount of time to work and it’s nearly impossible to be out there unless one is very, very prepared. When I don’t feel strong or if the numbers don’t say what I had hoped they would, I get nuts about how much I’m going to have to suffer because of where I am vs. where I should be.

To be fair, I am probably just a week or two behind where I “should be” but even so, it’s with less mileage than it should be. So… doing the math… it means that I was able to build up to the longer distances with less base mileage than I should have. Sure, that feels good that I can do these increasing distances on the bike and run but some of long bikes or runs just don’t feel right. I’m sure the shortened training schedule is to blame.

Case in point was today: I was originally going to cycle 80 miles then run 2 hours tomorrow. I wound up spending most of the day with a certain special someone and while part of me felt like I should be out there riding, bailing on the idea felt like the best decision. I somehow knew I’d not feel great on the bike today. So, I figured I could swap out the schedule and run today, bike tomorrow (given the rain tomorrow and with me working from home Monday, I’ll do it then). With 50+ degree weather, it was t-shirt and shorts weather.

Leaving the apartment and starting the run is always so strange physically. I literally walk down the steps to the corner, cross the street, than start running. It just seems so random. Getting to Central Park is 1.15 miles (please, of course you know I had to measure it) and to the actual Central Park Drive is 1.20 miles Even at that point, I was stiff and never had any fluidity or rhythm; I felt like I was still randomly running, kinda like I was forcing the issue rather than have it exist naturally. As I neared the finish of the first loop, around mile 7, I remember feeling such discomfort with the knee and just generally, so much so that I actually started planning how to bail from the race. I had to plan on my story to explain to the folks who would ask, I’d have to revise my race schedule a bit, not use so many vacation days, etc. I honestly felt like it’s just not a reality that I’ll feel good at all in Brazil. That bred other thoughts about how much life is used in training and how I could re-dedicate myself to music, maybe martial arts, etc. Follow the theme here and I found that I wound up running doomsday and life-defining scenarios about lots of things.

I thought about bailing at the end of the first loop but there was this one woman who had been in front of me on the Harlem climb and I found myself closing the gap steadily. When I went past my turnoff point, she wasn’t that far in front of me and something compelled me to see if I could not just catch her, but sustain the pace to lose her even after the pass. I checked my watch to get the start time of the next split (5 miles) and put on the gas. Before I knew it, I passed her (on an uphill) and started moving. Just in case anyone has this “Oh big deal, you passed a girl” attitude, I beg you to come to a NY Road Runner race and see if you can beat every woman there. There are some really crazy fast women in this city; I mean, it’s entirely humbling and as such, there’s no violation of gender respect by claiming victory (to/from either side).

I booked down the east side, cut across 72nd, and settled in the for the climbs on the northbound side of the west drive. For some reason, my pace was much faster than on the first loop and the knee issue was no mas. I passed a father-son pair trying to rollerblade up a hill (okay, that’s nothing to be proud of, but a pass is a pass!), and felt strong. My 5 mile split was paced at 8:25 and I was happy again. Overall, I ran 13.5 miles in 1:55 which is an 8:31 pace. Nice.

If you had asked me earlier in the run if I felt ready, the response would have been pathetic and full of cynicism. “Maybe I’m not made out for this thing. I used to be fast; what happened?” But, despite all the doom and gloom (admittedly self-invented), I got my mileage in and fought off the demons successfully which helped me get this training session completed. I remember that while training for IM Lake Placid, I was saddled with awful self-doubt, but it was for another reason; I had never seen an Ironman live, I had never tried an Ironman distance and had not-so-great half-Ironman experiences. Now, having one IM under my belt, the pressure is off; I can call myself an Ironman with tremendous pride and if for some reason I can’t complete IM Brazil, it’s okay. Thing is, it is just so counter to my personality to undertake this half-ass. I want a competitive finish time, but I think that the biggest draw is the entirely impossible description of what crossing that finish line feels like. That’s a wonderful topic for another entry.

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