Tag: Endurance

Conquering Pain: Accept it. Don’t Ignore it.

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When John was training for Ironman Cozumel, where he went on to qualify for Kona, he had a piece of paper that read: Pain cannot be ignored: It has to be conquered, and when it inevitably returns, it has to be conquered again. Find what you have and handle it.  Physical Mental Emotional Spiritual Now, I have this same piece of paper, hanging from a clip in front of my desk. It is a reminder of what is different about my training this year. It is a reminder that I have to learn how to conquer pain. Again. And again. …

A race for you, a race for me: The two-athlete household

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“What are you doing today?” John asks me each morning. Now, in the average household, when one partner asks the other what she is doing, this typically results in a response about the totality of the day’s scheduled events. In the two-athlete household, this question only means one thing: What’s your workout? There are other idiosyncrasies to the two-athlete household. The laundry. Oh. Em. Gee. The laundry. Even though there are only two of us, we manage to produce a Brady Bunch sized volume of laundry.  This is complicated by the fact that there is a forcefield surrounding the laundry that makes …

“That” Person

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Last weekend, I set about the business of grocery shopping, selecting a little of the organic this, and some vegetarian that, and a bit of whole sprouted grain something-or-other. I passed by many of the middle aisles, with no temptation to purchase the sugary, processed crap that lurks there. I lingered in the produce aisle, as my new game is to purchase some type of produce I’ve never cooked before and then figure out what to do with it. About halfway through the supermarket, I realized that over the course of the past several years, I had become that person. You know, the …

Season Opener: Bassman Race Report

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“Fifteen seconds to start,” the race director called through the bullhorn. What the heck? Only 15 seconds before he made this announcement, he had just let us enter the water. Now, about 100 of us had to make our way to the in-water start line, which was about 100 yards from the shoreline. Note to RD: It takes more than 30 seconds to line up 100 athletes at an in-water start. I tucked my head into the clear water and gave a few fast strokes to get to the buoy line. John was right in front of me. We wound up …

Sometimes it sucks

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Last Thursday, I fought through a 90 minute ride, with the final 10 minutes feeling like 100 minutes. I could feel the energy slipping away from my legs. I was so drained, I skipped my 15 minute transition run. Friday’s a new day, right? Wrong. I slogged through 3200 yards of swimming. On good days, I can swim 3200 yards to warm up for the rest of my workout. On this day, those same 3200 yards sent me to the couch for a 2-hour nap. And, then it was Saturday morning. Time for another long ride. Three hours. Sigh. I’m …

Flowing in the Zone

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I felt as if I was floating. My steps were smooth, as if the bottoms of my feet were hovering above the asphalt. My arms were light, guiding each movement, propeling my body forward. I felt the warm glow of enjoyment, as a smile crossed my face and I settled in for my run. My focus zeroed in on the rhythmic motion of running and breathing, breathing and running. In…out…in…out. As my feet pushed against the ground, I was aware of each muscle–legs, core, back, arms–as it shortened and lengthened to move me forward. I envisioned the perfect footfall, my …

How can we fit it all in?

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If you are going to train for an endurance event, you need time. No shocker there, right? Preparation for distance events, such as marathons and triathlons, can require anywhere from 10 to 25 hours a week. With family, friends, work, household chores and so on, it is challenging to find that “extra” time for focused training. Even more daunting still are the hidden time costs that come from doing extra laundry, preparing food, traveling to races or group training sessions, ensuring proper recovery, and of course, blogging and logging training milestones. While I wrote about time management last year, an …

IMLP Race Report Part 1: Everybody Was Kung Fu Swimming

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Training, racing and finishing a second Ironman is not like the first. It is both easier and harder. Easier because all of the mysteries, like the behind-the-scenes details of transition, were revealed during last year’s race. Harder because you know what’s coming. Easier because you’ve done it once, and there isn’t the pressure of wondering whether or not you can do it. Harder because there is the pressure of doing it better, faster, stronger. Going in to this year’s Ironman Lake Placid, I was feeling the pressure. It’s not like I didn’t have pressure last year, but it was more …

Extraordinary Moments

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Life offers precious few truly extraordinary moments. These opportunities are particularly limited if we do not seek them out.  We cannot wait for the extraordinary to come to us. We must make the extraordinary happen. But, it is hard work that brings with frightful challenges and frustrating barriers. Yet, meeting the challenge and overcoming the barriers lead to a reward so rich, so deeply fulfilling that I cannot help but seek these moments. Let’s face it: I’m an addict. Endurance sport is the fix. The challenges of training for and racing Ironman push me past my comfort zone and are …

Miley Cyrus is right: It’s all about the climb

With two laps of Mirror Lake completed, my fellow Fireman Ironman training partners were stripping their wetsuits, drying off and heading back to their accommodations to prepare for the long run, which would begin at 12:30 p.m. Me? I was trying to avoid throwing a pity party for myself. With less than 5 weeks to go until Ironman Lake Placid, I’m sidelined from running thanks to a cranky right leg that is suffering from a mixture of tendinitis and ITBS. Good times. So as I exited the water, I did not strip my wetsuit. I did not dry off. I …