I like to talk a big game about “getting comfortable with being uncomfortable” and “the magic happens outside of your comfort zone” and all the related platitudes of that ilk.
But, do I walk that talk?
While I won’t say I’ve completely mastered being comfortable with the discomfort of endurance pain, I know I can take a long course licking and keep on ticking. My nickname isn’t Midget Tank for no reason.
What I’m not very good at – not good even a little bit – is anything at or even near my threshold. The so-called “red-line.” No, I much prefer the green line, the so-what-if-my-muscles-feel-like-someone-is-sticking-ice-picks-in-them-I-can-still-breathe-so-I’m-fine line.
In the last several years of training, I’ve done very few efforts at or near the threshold, especially in running. Just to make sure I wasn’t telling you all pork pies, I looked at my Training Peaks charts for the past few years.
Last year, my time in running HR zones were as follows (percentages are rounded):
- 50% in Zone 1/Easy
- 40% in Zone 2/Steady
- 7% in Zone 3/Mod-hard
- 2% in Zone 4/Hard
- Not even a full percentage point in Zone 5/Very Hard.
Cycling is a little bit better, but as with running, the lion’s share of time is spent in zone 1 and zone 2 (45% and 29% respectively).
As you can see from the chart below, if I expand this analysis out to the past three years, the percentages stay roughly the same across the two sports.
So, it’s safe to say I’ve become comfortable – and I would argue too comfortable – with the long distance ache. So, what to do to shake things up?
Go short and hard, of course. So, I signed up for a local sprint triathlon (, May 23, 2015), and prepared myself to get really uncomfortable. I find it much easier to push hard in a race context, so I saw this race as an opportunity to re-introduce myself to threshold work.
The Hammonton Sprint was my very first triathlon 6 years ago, at a time when I had NO IDEA what my triathlon journey was to become. I was on a used bike, that was about 2 sizes too big for me. I wore $20 bike shorts (can you say OUCH?!), and I was grossly unprepared for the open water swim–with people. Within 30 seconds of the start, I had been kicked in the face, panicked and wound up swimming the entire race with my face out of the water. True story.
While I didn’t pick the race this year because of that symbolic meaning, I was struck by it as I was about to get into the water to start the race. I’ve come back to the beginning of my triathlon journey as I’m at a point of transition from what I’ve done to what I want to achieve next.
This race taught me some new things, and reminded me of some valuable lessons I need to keep in mind for the future. In no particular order, here’s what I learned by returning to the sprint distance after 6 years:
- I have absolutely no flying mount/dismount game. I pretty much look like I’m doing my first triathlon ever when I get on and off the bike. Just look away. I’m hideous. Yes, I should be able to do this in Ironman, but some logistics make it impossible or unnecessary. In a sprint I feel like my inability to achieve gracefulness is exaggerated 1,000-fold.
- Nutrition and hydration needs to be scaled to the distance. As in scaled way down to pretty much nothing for a sprint. There was absolutely no need for the 24 ounces of fluid I took with me for my 35 minute jaunt. Furthermore, at the near puke-zone effort of a sprint, I could not even get a single sip of water down my throat. I tried once. The water projectiled back out of my mouth.
- Fast twitch muscles should be used in training if you hope to recruit them in any meaningful way on race day. Like it or not, some intensity needs to be a part of my weekly training. I’m writing it here to hold myself accountable.
- I need 45 minutes to warm up. I ran and swam for a bit before the start, but really, I should have done a sprint tri before the sprint tri. I finally felt good by the final mile of the run. I started the run with an average 7:28/mile and felt like I had two left feet. By the final mile, I was running a 6:35/mile and wishing there were another 10 miles to go.
- If I didn’t already know it, this race confirmed that I am an endurance monster. Moreover, I am not joking when I say I would rather run 50 miles than 5k. This is the truest story I’ve ever told.
- Pushing the red line for 60 minutes is painful – but it burns a lot of calories in a short amount of time. So, that’s a definite perk of the short course.
- There is absolutely no point in “waiting” to attack. The entire race is an attack. That’s a race strategy I’m wholly unfamiliar with. It took me about 5 minutes to realize: hey, you need to go for it NOW.
- Related to the previous lesson: There is absolutely no way you can find a rhythm at any point during a sprint. Stop bothering and just embrace the lung explosion (or implosion). I think I finally gave in to the chaos about mile 2 of the run. A little late for that, I think.
- The second you start you are “almost finished.” Another perk of the short course.
Being done by 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning made me feel like I was naughty girl. So, I came home and ran the dog for 45 minutes. The active recovery was helpful. I’m not even sore the next day.- Doing a cost per hour analysis, I discovered that a sprint triathlon, while cheaper in an absolute sense, is about the same as an Ironman when you consider what you pay per hour. I paid $70 for about 70 minutes. For an Ironman, I pay $700 for about 11 hours. So, it works out. And, really, a double IM is the best bargain – that race only cost me $645 for 25 hours.
Pushing myself out of my comfort zone felt good – after I was done. The glow of anaerobic endorphins, along with the lung cookies I coughed up throughout the day, reminded me that I need to get uncomfortable like this more often. While I can’t say I will ever want to specialize in short course, the intense efforts are good for an old Midget Tank like me.
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What’s your “uncomfortable”? How do you get out of your comfort zone?
