Countdown to Ironman, Week 1: It's Go Time

Whatever is in my body's fitness bank has been deposited, nothing more can be added now. Now it's all about the details - thinking over my race execution, preparing myself mentally, getting together the gear, nutrition, hydration, sunscreen, and everything else I'll need to have a successful day.

I'm in my taper, which means that my body is taking all of that work that I put it through, and using rest to convert it to sheer power and endurance. At least that's how I think of it in my mind. Tapering used to make me crazy and fidgety, but now I just enjoy the feeling of gathering power in my muscles and in my mind.

I don't ask that everything go perfectly (although that would be nice). I simply pray that I am ready for whatever the day has to offer me, and that I may take the time to enjoy the race, the other participants, and the ability that I have to move my body 140.6 miles.

Countdown to Ironman, Weeks 24 & 23: Where's the Magic?

I think when you do something as monumentally difficult as training for an Ironman, you should suddenly, magically look really buff and tough. You would imagine that with this much bodily effort, this many muscle contractions, this many calories burnt, this many miles, you would come out the other side looking like a cross between a fitness model and a Greek goddess, right? But the truth is, if you watch the finish line of an Ironman, you'll pretty much see that apart from the pros and the genetically blessed, most of us crossing it still look like mere mortals. It's enough to make even Aphrodite pull her hair in frustration.

In the middle of a training cycle, you often don't even feel very energetic. You don't benefit from this busload of training because you're too busy being exhausted from actually doing it. The idea of course, is that once you taper the training off, you'll suddenly have this incredible fitness level. But from inside the Thunderdome of Pain (also known as the basement where the bike trainer resides), it doesn't always feel like it's there. I mean, what's the point of being an exceptionally fit person when you have to stop in the middle of climbing a flight of stairs because your quads are screaming for mercy from yesterday's track workout?

At this point, in the Heart of the Training Darkness, you just have to trust in the process and know that you'll come out the other side with an incredible engine-  that after the fatigue of the race wears off, you'll be able to do anything you want to with ease. I remember that the year after my last Ironman, I set all kinds of PRs at shorter distances, just because I had this huge base of training that I was building on. I know it will feel like that this summer when the Ironman is done and I no longer have to train as long, but I can enjoy the results of all the work I'm doing right now.

I have to tell myself these things on a day like today: a day where it's cold and it's sleeting and I have to drag myself off of my warm couch and away from my cup of tea to go brave the elements and get my run workout done. It will all be worth it when I cross the finish line, and all the adversity I face today only makes me stronger.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 32: Courage Breath

In our form of karate, we practice different sorts of breathing as well as learning to kiai (what people think of as the "Aiii-yah" in badly dubbed martial arts movies). While a kiai is described as an " inner gathering of energy released in a single explosive focus of will", there are also "focus breaths" and "courage breaths". A focus breath occurs anytime you strike, block, or someone punches at you, and serves to both focus your energy as well as tensing your abdominal muscles to protect your core organs, it's short and sharp and comes from the gut. A courage breath is a slow breath that you take in through the nose and release through the back of your mouth in a Darth Vader-like manner. We use these while making slow, intense, focused movements in a kata, or while gathering energy and mental calm before performing a move.

It's funny, but at stressful times in my life (like, oh, when the kids are bickering while I'm line at the bank, not that this ever happens to me....), I find myself using a courage breath to momentarily center myself and give myself just a tiny mental time-out and re-focusing. It might sound a bit weird to the people around when you suddenly emit a Vader-ish breath or two, but it really does work. And keeps you from knocking your kids heads together.

While training, preparing, and planning for an Ironman is undoubtably thrilling and exciting, it's also nerve-wracking and to be truthful, a bit fear-inducing. I can get butterflies in my stomach just thinking about it too much, and I've learned never ever to think about it late at night or I'll be up for hours from the sudden jolt of adrenaline. Clearly, my body knows how serious it is, even if my mind can fool itself into thinking these are trivial details about an event that is far, far away (though creeping up, week by week).

I've decided to employ the courage breath as a regular part of my Ironman training. Borrowing from my martial arts, my plan is to use this breath both during training (since the intervals that are the bulk of my current regimen regularly make me nervous) and during racing when I'm sure there will be some moments when I will need to call on my reserves of courage and calm. I'm going to practice drawing in and letting go of that courage breath when I'm standing on a cold, misty lakeshore in my wetsuit, or heading to the track at dawn.

One thing I've learned well from karate is that nothing, not even breathing, can be done well if you don't practice it with intention. So today my intention is to breathe well, and take courage from my breath. You can follow along, everybody now... inhale..... and aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. See, don't you feel better already?

How Do You Accomplish The "Impossible"?

If you picture an athlete with an Iron Will who challenges her body, accomplishes a task she thought she couldn't handle and succeeds, does the image that springs to mind immediately include someone tanned, clad in lycra, with a race number pinned to the front?

Not all of us are that type of person, and not all of us seek those types of challenges. But all of us can challenge ourselves - our bodies, our minds, and our souls - to reach beyond what we thought we were capable of and to meet that challenge and succeed.

Meet Dorcas Smucker: Writer, Speaker, Newspaper Columnist, Mother to Six, Mennonite, School Principal, and probably many other hats I'm forgetting that she wears. She's one of the best writers I've ever been privileged to know, and if you want to pick up a book that will get you inspired as well as sniffling with sentiment and howling with laughter, look no further than her books Upstairs the Peasants Are Revolting and Ordinary Days.

Dorcas writes a column in our newspaper, Letters From Harrisburg, and this month's was about a physical challenge that she accomplished. As usual, I can't approach her level of eloquence, so you should go and read what she wrote: Accomplishing The Impossible, One Small Step At A Time.


It got me thinking about how many things we classify as "impossible" in our own minds, immediately throwing up roadblocks as we do so. What are we stopping ourselves from accomplishing this very day, just by virtue of thinking "I can't"? Find one thing today, and say to yourself "I can" instead.

And if you don't look like the lycra-clad athlete you think you must be in your head, remember that Iron Moms come in all packages, ages, shapes, and sizes. Iron is what's inside you, that thing that says you won't give up on your goals, and like Dorcas you'll find yourself standing on top of your world, amazed at what you can do.

Why Endurance Training Is Not Nearly Enough

I love endurance sports, don't get me wrong.

By virtue of not being very fast, I'm an endurance specialist. I like to go long and you all know I LOVE my swimsuit, my bike, and ... well at least I like trail running. But what does endurance training give you beside endurance itself (mental, physical, sometimes emotional)? Not much. Despite triathlon's three disciplines, it's a very narrow skill set that you acquire for all those hours and hours of training. Just a small slice of the overall fitness pie. And probably not the most crucial piece.

When I came flying off of my bike on Thursday, I was traveling somewhere over 20 miles per hour. My chain came off the sprocket and jammed in my rear derailleur, stopping my back wheel cold, I hurtled about eight feet through the air before the first part of me struck the pavement.

By all rights, that first part of me should've been my outstretched hands, probably followed by my face, head, and torso. That's the way it usually goes. If it had indeed unfolded that way, I would probably be typing this from a hospital, while the doctors debated about whether it would be better to rebuild my jaw first or do the skin grafts.

But I had several things going for me that the average bike crash victim doesn't. Many of them are contained in the pie chart above. I had the agility, flexibility, dexterity, balance, and coordination to duck my head toward my right shoulder, curl my left arm in front of me, and execute a near-perfect martial arts forward roll. As this was happening automatically with my body taking over for my mind, my mind was free to contemplate all sorts of things.

If you've ever been in a situation of heightened danger, you know all about the relativity of time. The absolute slowest four seconds of my life occurred on a skydive between the moment when I knew that my main parachute was malfunctioning and the point that my reserve parachute was fully open above my head. It's amazing how much you can observe and contemplate in such a span of time. I could note the runway numbers painted on the pavement directly beneath me, debate whether or not I should try to move myself away toward the much-softer-than-asphalt earth should my reserve parachute fail to open, mentally review the last time my reserve parachute was packed and by who, think about the last things I'd said to several loved ones and evaluate whether or not they were what I'd want to leave with them as my final words, and hope that my mother didn't read my teenage diaries if she should go through my apartment after my demise.

So when I say that while I was flying off of my bike, I had time to think about the fact that I was hurtling toward the lane of oncoming traffic and I should really twist my body and roll on my left side instead of my right, but damn, that's my bad arm so I better make sure I tuck it under myself so I don't re-dislocate my wrist, you'll know I had plenty of time to figure that all out. And so roll on my left side I did, taking me away from my trajectory into the oncoming lane, and landing me back up on my feet. At first, I thought I'd gotten away scot free. I didn't have so much as a scratch on me that I could see, other than a small dime-sized dot of road rash on my elbow.

My elbow.

Huh. Now standing there my fingers were starting to go numb. Not good. Yep. I dinged it just hard enough to re-break it in the same spot I did last year. That's a bummer for sure, but not a catastrophe.

I was talking with a friend yesterday who said they'd just met a woman who survived a similar bike crash. Her face looked like it had recently met a belt sander. So for this, I can thank my martial arts instructors and my dedication to pursuing overall health and fitness, not just a narrow band of endurance sports.

Later, when I got home and started to take off my shirt, feeling a bit bruised and tender, I noticed this interesting pattern of rash/bruising across my back. Evidence that I indeed executed a roll that distributed the impact of my crash in a lateral line from left shoulder to right hip. I don't normally post half-naked photos of myself (though I suppose that blogs who do get far more traffic than mine, LOL), but I am justifiably proud of this rash pattern (so mild, it didn't even tear through my shirt).

Eight of the twelve pieces of the Fitness Pie above helped save me from severe injury. Coupled with my helmet, they possibly saved me from concussion or coma as well. Only my endurance, stamina, strength, and power were not called into play. However, as I had only my own two feet to transport myself (cradling broken arm and carrying my bike bag) to first the doctor's office (1/3 mile down the road) and eventually home (2+ miles away), my endurance did also help me out in the end.

We never know what trials life will bring us. Are we ready to face all of them? If we had to lift a heavy object off of a family member after an earthquake to save their life, could we? If we had to walk 20 miles to safety while carrying our children or possessions, could we? If we had to make a split-second decision to roll away from an oncoming vehicle, would our body comply?

Ahead of me is yet another road of healing and rehabilitation. But just like last time, when my body has recovered, I'll be looking at that whole pie and making sure I'm ready to face what life throws me.

Why Chuck Norris Jokes Are Dangerous

They've been tweeted, Facebooked, and made into Demotivational Posters, and everyone with kids has heard a hundred or so of them. But why are Chuck Norris jokes not just dangerous, but a threat to our society in general?

Because they are the worst kind of lie, the kind we tell ourselves. We like to convince ourselves that hard work doesn't matter, that people like Chuck Norris become skilled, fast, powerful, strong, and fit because of their impossible super powers

Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas.

We'd like to think that, like Rocky Balboa or the Karate Kid, Chuck Norris went to some mystic guru-like sensei, worked hard for about, oh, 8 weeks or so, and emerged as the Karate Champion of the World and a Universal Badass. But the truth is that Chuck Norris, like anyone who has achieved anything meaningful, worked very hard to get there. He studied, he trained, he fought, he even lost, he learned from his mistakes and went back to fight some more, and to train some more, and to train even more. And eventually, he became very very good.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of us believe that we should instantly be great at something when we first try it. Or if not instantly, we should, in a matter of weeks, begin mastering the skills. Instead, Malcolm Gladwell argues in his (excellent) book Outliers that true mastery takes about 10,000 hours. TEN. THOUSAND. HOURS. Cogitate on that one for awhile. He gives many examples of successful businessmen, athletes, and entrepreneurs that show how each one had a combination of opportunities that allowed them access to those 10,000 hours. Of course it also takes skill. But skill alone is not enough. Even highly skilled people have to work hard to get good.

What does this mean for those of us who are trying to transform ourselves? In a way, I think it can bring a sense of relief and peace. If we release ourselves from the expectation that we'll be awesome overnight, that we'll acquire the necessary skills in an immediate time frame, then we can gift ourselves with the opportunity to simply suck for awhile. We can then take our time, we can allow ourselves to learn and grow and get better in our own way. We can also allow ourselves to not only make mistakes, but to learn from them. Instead of letting a failure derail us from our goals, we can pick ourselves up and carry on. After all, even Chuck Norris failed his first black belt test. It didn't stop him though, did it?

When we turn away from the American "Magic Wand" approach to mastery and instead accept the notion that meaningful change is often slow and incremental, we also avoid what author David Wong calls "Effort Shock". In his excellent essay How the Karate Kid Ruined the Modern World, Wong argues that Effort Shock (similar to Sticker Shock where we realize that the price of something is far higher than anticipated) comes when

We have a vague idea in our head of the "price" of certain accomplishments, how difficult it should be to get a degree, or succeed at a job, or stay in shape, or raise a kid, or build a house. And that vague idea is almost always catastrophically wrong.

So the next time you're prone to be hard on yourself for failing to live up to your (probably unrealistic) expectations about how something should come more easily, remember that meaningful change comes one step at a time. And that if someone is standing in your way, it's quite likely that person is you. Or, as Chuck Norris himself (the Universal Badass himself) says:

You can usually see your way around the blocks that other people put in your path, but the blocks you create yourself, the ones that come from inside your own thinking, seem rooted in the ground and as wide as the horizon. As indeed they are, for you yourself are standing in the way. The way around the block is from the inside.

Learn to think kindly of yourself, to pay yourself the respect you'd pay someone else. Learn to greet yourself the way you'd greet a stranger - politely, open to the possibility that you might be about to make a friend for life, aware that the person standing in front of you could be anyone, could come from anywhere, could be about to accomplish anything. The stranger could be about to make any number of dreams come true. And having greeted the stranger, realize that all those things are equally true of yourself.

D-Day

After years and years of training, it all comes down to this. Thirty pairs of black belt eyes will be upon us. The moment of truth. Will I crumble under the pressure, or shine like gold? D-day has arrived. Or should I call it "BB-Day"?? Black Belt final testing day is here, though my partner and I have been through several pre-tests in the last two weeks. So we are somewhat inoculated against the stress, I hope.

One thing that surprised me about this whole process is just how much fun it's been. I think most of that is due to my partner. Training with Toni has been such a blessing, I think we bring out the best in each other. Your partner for the black belt test has to be someone you can trust. After all, they are going to do things like grab your arm and throw an elbow towards the center of your nose, choke off your carotid artery, or wrist-lock you in a move that would snap tendons and bones if done at full force. Just a few millimeters wrong or a few too many pounds of pressure and you're in serious trouble. Choosing a good partner and training with them for months ensures that you each know each other well enough to fully trust them. But Toni and I have laughed together and just had a great time, as well as getting serious when we need to.

As extra insurance, I got us each a stuffed brain cell, made by the GIANT Microbes company, just in case our original 44 year old grey matter isn't quite up to the task. We've propped them on the benches in the dojo while we're practicing, though here you can see them tucked into our belts.

I've used every tool in my mental toolbox to get myself ready. The physical training is not something I've worried too much about. I know what my body is capable of. I know I can push it very hard. I know pain doesn't bother me much. I know it will do what I demand of it. But my brain, oh my poor brain. That's what I worry will desert me in my hour of need.

There's not much more we can do at this moment to prepare. Everything that's stored in our brain cells and bodies is there. Anything that isn't won't get there in the next few hours. We'll meet in the morning to just go over stuff, and by 8:30 tonight it will all be over. If you hear me Hooraying over there on the East coast, you'll know I got my black belt.

I Am Not Climate Controlled

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. That's the way the song goes. As humans, we strive for comfort. That's why we have recliner chairs with cupholders. No, with coolers built-in. That's why we have "room temperature" and down comforters and towel racks that heat your towels. Not that I have those, mind you. My towels are usually clammy from being dumped on the floor in a heap by whatever child took a shower last and "forgot" to hang them up. Simply a dry towel would be a luxury around here. Did I mention that I really hate soggy towels?

So why should we make ourselves uncomfortable? Why should we go out in the pouring freezing rain when a room temperature room beckons us homeward? I think it's a good idea to occasionally push ourselves to be uncomfortable (and I don't mean just using soggy towels). To experience a greater range of existence than a narrow band of clean, dry, climate-controlled living. What is it like to feel the rain on your face? Dripping down your back? A cold breeze across your neck? Your feet sloshing through ankle deep puddles? It's a sensory feast that's not entirely as unpleasant as it sounds. Just like our muscles aren't very strong if they're only worked in a narrow range of motion, our brains and our mental resilience don't get worked very hard in today's easy existence. Perhaps it is worth building up a great range of tolerance to stimuli outside the range of normal.

When I'm out in the less-than-ideal weather and I feel my brain starting to get into complaining mode, I use a technique of sensory "noticing" that helps me focus on what I'm really feeling instead of just being miserable about it. I start with a series of open-ended sentences and fill them in as I go:

"I hear...."
"I smell...."
"I see...."
"I feel..."

So on a day like today, it might go something like

"I hear birds in the trees"
"I smell wet leaves and fir needles"
"I see the three golden leaves left on a bare tree"
"I feel a light breeze coming from the east"

When I get to the end of my sensory inventory, I start over again at the top, marveling at how things change as I go along. Sometimes we barely even notice our surroundings, especially when we're too busy wallowing in misery at the fact that the weather had the gall to rain on our Sunday long run. When we turn our attention outward instead of inward, what might at first seem simply miserable can turn into an opportunity to actually fully experience the world around us.

The next time you're tempted to just go to the gym when the weather outside is frightful, stretch yourself a little and see what it feels like to suffer the elements. After all, we can always come home to that delightful fire (or hot shower, or warm cup of tea), a luxury that most humans throughout time have not had.

Tri Coach: Transition Area

One of the most confusing things for new triathletes is the transition area. Since this question came up this week, I thought I'd break down a typical transition area here and give some pointers.

The first thing to know about transition areas is that the space you have will be small. It's best not to make it look like a garage sale with gear and clothing sprawling all over the place. Even if you get to the transition area early and set up with plenty of room, chances are that the racks will get progressively more crowded as the start of the race nears, and your spacious area will shrink to about the size of a decent hand towel. So just bring what you need, and leave the rest in your gear bag. Apply your sunscreen and your glide, your lip balm, hair tyes, and anything else you might need, put them away and just bring the basics to transition.

This is a photo of how I set up my own transition area at most races. I bring my nice bright green towel, and fold it until it's just about as wide as my bike's handlebars. This ensures that it takes up the same amount of space as the bike racked on the opposite side of the bike rack from me. If everyone racks their bikes on alternating sides of the rack, that's as much space as you will probably get.

My cap and goggles obviously go with me to the swim start, so I lay them out right in front. Next are my biking shoes, with velcro straps opened and loose. Note that bike shoes can also be clipped onto your pedals, but new triathletes probably don't need to worry about giving that a try right off the bat. If I choose to wear socks in a longer race, I will scrunch them all the way up until they are very compressed, and lay each one carefully inside a shoe. That way when I get to the shoes I can just stick my toes inside the sock and pull it up quickly over the foot.My helmet is beside the shoes, and I like to keep my sunglasses inside the helmet with the earpieces open and pointing up. That way I grab the sunglasses and put them on, smash the helmet on my head, buckle the strap and I'm off.

In the back of the transition towel is the running gear. My shoes have lace locks on them, and they are pulled open and ready to jam my feet into. On top of the shoes is my running hat, with the bill facing toward me, ready to just pop onto my head. On top of that I've placed a race number belt with my race number already clipped into it. Note that in some races (not very many any more) you may be required to wear a race number on the bike. In that case, I lay this on top of my bike shoes, and put it on with the number on my back. When I get to the run, the number is required to be in front so I just spin it around. In most races though you only need the number for the run. So you can pin it to your shirt or singlet, or you can use a number belt and just put it on for the run. My number belt happens to have some little elastic loops for sticking gels into, so for a longer race I can load it up with a couple of gels ahead of time.

That's it! There's not a lot of stuff in this transition area, which means no fumbling around when I'm in a hurry in T1 and T2 of the race. Before I go to the start line in my wetsuit, I stop and look at the transition area. I go to the chute where I'll be entering from the water and walk towards my rack, noting where it is in the area (it's five racks to the right from the entrance, or it's seven racks on the left). Though you will see it recommended frequently, please resist the notion of bringing a helium balloon and tying it to your rack so that you can find your bike. I was at a windy race this June where several people on my rack had done this. The balloons where all blowing horizontally, getting tangled in other peoples' bikes and gear, and bopping other triathletes in the face as they tried to transition. Trust me, you can remember that you are five racks on the left without a balloon.

As I do my run-through, I mentally see myself running in from the swim. I see myself unzipping my wetsuit as I run (not taking off my cap and goggles first, as that ties up your hands). Once the wetsuit is unzipped and stripped down to the waist, then I take off my cap and goggles and have them in hand as I approach the transition area. Now I approach my own area, and I see myself stripping off my wetsuit, putting on my bike shoes, my sunglasses and helmet, and unracking my bike and taking off.

This is a good time to practice taking your bike off of the rack and make sure that all goes smoothly. Make sure you don't have any brake levers or shift levers that will catch on the rack, make sure you've racked it in such a way that you can get it off easily. I was at a race recently where the woman on the rack next to me had racked her bike by rolling it under the rack and hanging her seat on the rack, but facing the wrong way (away from her own transition area). So she would have to roll it out backwards, catching her handlebars on the rack to get it out. Unfortunately, she could only get it off the rack by turning it almost sideways, a feat that was not possible once everyone else's bikes were racked. I pointed this out to her in the transition area before the race and thankfully she had time to change it. But she would've had an unpleasant surprise if she'd run up from the swim only to find she couldn't get her bike out without knocking over everyone else's!

After I take my bike off the rack, I make sure I know which direction I'm going out of the transition area to get to the bike course. Then I come back and re-rack the bike. I visualize myself making the bike to run transition. I mentally put on my race belt, my hat, and my running shoes. Again, I make sure I know which way I'm running out of the transition area to get to the run course. Learning these things ahead of time saves confusion in the middle of the race (you will almost always see race volunteers having to re-direct some hapless athlete who has tried to bike onto the run course or run the wrong way out of transition).

Phew! That seems like a lot, but by laying out a simple transition area, by making sure your bike is racked safely in a position that you can easily remove it from the rack, and by mentally practicing your transition and knowing where you'll be going, you will be on your way to having smooth and effective transitions in your race with a minimum of panic and confusion.

Kaizen Meets Flow

If you're an athlete, you know what Flow is. You're either in it, or you're out of it. Like a current in the river, you know when you're moving with it or just in an eddy by the shore going nowhere. But how do you grab hold of it and wrestle it to the ground and make it yours? Now that's the challenge. It reminds me of the lyrics to that wonderful song from Sound of Music about Maria, "How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?, How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?" Achieving Flow can feel just that elusive.

The book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi should be on every athlete's bookshelf as the author studies the state of flow (you might refer to this as being "in the zone") among many different people, some of them athletes. He comes to some conclusions about how people achieve flow that are, I think, useful to those of us who would like to be there more often.

For me in swimming, flow is more elusive than just its mental component and is tied directly to technique and my ability to hold that good technique through the fatigue and intensity of a workout. In a sense, I lost the flow of my swimming when I pursued the high-elbow catch two years ago. I managed to nail the catch, which definitely brought a lot more power into my stroke, but at the same time I lost some elusive groove in my rhythm, with the net result that I ended up slightly slower. If there's anything more frustrating to a swim coach than tweaking your stroke and ending up slower, I'd love to know what it is!

But in the spirit of Kaizen, which you may remember from a previous post is a Japanese term for "constant never-ending improvement", I have been trying to find that rhythm ever since. I've tweaked my kick, my hand exit, my hand-entry, my timing, but all to no avail. I am no faster than I was in December of 2007 when I started mucking with my stroke.

That is, UNTIL LAST NIGHT!!! I changed one more thing, one more little tiny thing, and BOOM, it all fell into place again. I changed the angle of my head when I breathe, just slightly more forward, and that was IT. My old rhythm came back, swimming felt effortless and free and beautiful and gliding and all of the things I remember it could be. I did a set of descending 500's and the last one clocked in at 6:51, despite massively fatigued arms from a morning workout of bench presses and pull-ups and a 1.5 hour karate class in the mid-day.

So today I am celebrating, not just because the flow and the groove came back to my swimming, but because I never gave up trying to find it, trying to change and improve what I'm doing there in the pool. Today I'm signing up for my first swim meet in over 20 years, and I think now I'm actually excited to see what I can do. I know the times won't be what they were when I swam in college, but I think they'll be good for where I'm at now, and that's all I need.

To Endure

Do you ever feel like someone is writing a script for your life, and in the margins they've scribbled little chapter headings or life lessons so that on one particular week you get bombarded with messages for that particular subject? Well, sometimes I do. Or perhaps it's just that once you start noticing something, you see instances of it everywhere, kind of like once you buy a red VW Jetta, you see them everywhere.

This week's theme seems to be endurance: how to have it, or more accurately how to practice it. I like how even the word endure has more than one meaning. It can mean " To carry on through, despite hardships, to bear with tolerance" or alternatively "To continue in existence, to last". Thus when one develops endurance, it affects more than, say, whether they can complete a marathon. I think the effects of endurance can ripple out through one's entire life into corners you might not expect.

I suppose it helps that I finally got around to reading Lance Armstrong's It's Not About The Bike - one of those books I've been meaning to read forever, but I just found a copy at the thrift store for $1 and picked it up. It's pretty much a page-turner if you ask me. Especially the chapters about the Tour de France, or maybe that just marks me as the sports/cycling geek that I am because I couldn't put it down during those parts. And of course the book details his fight with cancer and how that affected both his mental and physical self.

This week at our home gym, which we have named "The Rock", one of the workouts was a 10 kilometer row on the C2 rowing machine. If, like me, you've never rowed seriously hard on one of these human torture devices, it might be difficult to appreciate just what a task a 10k row is. All I can say is that on the day I did it, although it only took about 43 minutes, I later felt like I'd been on a 4 or 5 hour bike ride. It's very taxing and works all major muscle groups.

Some of the folks who are working out with us have never done any endurance sports whatsoever, especially since Crossfit itself is very light on the endurance end of the range, with most workouts lasting no longer than 20 - 30 minutes. Of course for some folks who come from an endurance background, the intensity of Crossfit is the new and challenging thing, so there are workouts to challenge everyone. But this week it's the 10k row that's the bugaboo.

I was watching my friend tackle this difficult workout one day and observed something very interesting. Through the middle of the workout I could just tell she was really suffering. Everything hurt, everything felt bad for her. If you've ever been in the middle of something tough, you know that feeling. But one of my mantras is that while everyone in an intense sport experiences pain, suffering is a choice that we make. Go watch an endurance event and you can pick out who is in pain (everyone) and who is suffering. The difference lies in the specific skill of endurance, the ability to endure. So I was trying to help her find that mental place where you can take yourself so that you're no longer suffering. All of a sudden, I could see it happen, that transformation from suffering to enduring. It was so cool to watch. She just got real focused and for the entire rest of the workout she was in that zone.

Then this Friday, our Master's swimmers gathered to do our annual New Year's swim workout. This year, in honor of 2010, it was 110 x 50 yards on the :45 interval. If you've ever swum intervals, you'll know exactly what that means and how tough it is! If you don't, let's just say it's over an hour and twenty minutes of swimming intensely for 40 seconds and then getting about 5 seconds of rest and doing it all over again 110 times. As you can imagine, to endure such a workout, you need a toolbag of mental tricks. I was employing lots of them - sometimes I use mental math: calculating splits and times and what time we started and when we would end. Sometimes I use mantras, sometimes I focus on my stroke, or my turns or breathing.

Afterwards, I talked with one of the other swimmers and he said that he did each 50 as a Swim Golf. Briefly, that means that you count your strokes, and then you add that number to your time in seconds and your total is your Swim Golf Score. It's a very helpful metric for analyzing the efficiency of your stroke. But what blew me away was that this guy did that for 110 50's!!! Think of the mental and physical discipline that this entails. No wonder he's one of our fastest swimmers. He said he kept them to 61 or 62 each and every time, thus he ensured that his technique did not fall apart as he became more fatigued. If you want to be even more impressed with this, go try a swim golf the next time you hit the pool and you'll see that a swim golf of 62 is a very impressive feat to replicate 110 times.

From my Masters swimming friend to Lance Armstrong, it's clear that really great athletes have the ability to mentally dominate their physical existence, including pain and discomfort. They have a toolbox (either consciously or unconsciously) that is full of techniques that enable them to step away from the realm of suffering and to manage these sensations in a way that keeps them focused. As we head into the New Year, it's worthwhile to think about our own toolbox of mental tricks and see if we can expand on them a bit. The next time we find ourselves in the middle of a sufferfest, maybe we can pull out something new!

The Pressure Cooker

Bonny commented here with this question, and I think it's a really good one to think about so I'm posting it here for pondering:

do you have any advice for a 15yo girl who has trouble performing under pressure?

Her ability is REALLY *there.* Obviously developing still. She's only 15 LOL. But she doesn't do well under pressure. I think that most of her obstacles are mental ... and I'd love to see her work through some of this (and I know that any help she gets isn't going to heard if it's from her mama ...)

I've been actually thinking on this topic a fair bit lately, since all of my Team in Training folks are quickly approaching their Big Day and I've heard from more than one of them that nerves are starting to become a factor. I have a very distinct memory of the first time I felt really good and nervous and my mom told me I had "butterflies in the stomach", an expression I had never heard before. At the time, all I knew was that I hated the feeling, as I suspect most of us do. I also knew that I myself didn't perform well under pressure. As a kid, I could play something absolutely perfectly in practice and get all worked up and blow it in a performance. It took years and years to realize that becoming nervous under pressure can be a good thing once you learn how to channel that energy into the right direction.

In general, the folks who have the most trouble performing under pressure are perfectionists. We struggle because we so want everything to be just right. It can be an awesome trait to have, because perfectionists often work very hard at whatever they're doing, and can really blow you away with their abilities. On the other hand, perfectionism can be crippling when we let it get in the way of just doing something, even if it's not done perfectly. I love some of the things The Flylady has to say about this, especially her little mantra about housework done imperfectly still blessing the house. You can really extrapolate that to just about anything - anything we do imperfectly is still a blessing. It's hard for us perfectionists to recognize that, however. As a kid and a teen, I could occasionally be seen to fake something, anything (illness, injury, dog eating my homework) to excuse the fact that I hadn't done something perfectly. It can take many years, or even decades maybe for us to learn that it's okay. We can just do something. That's why I love bowling. I totally and utterly suck at it, and what's even better: I don't care. Bowling is the first thing that really saved me from perfectionism.

If we can get past a fear of making mistakes, then we can start channeling our nervous energy into the kind of energy that carries us through a race or performance. One technique that I use to direct that energy is that of positive visualization. In the days or weeks leading up to an event, whenever I become nervous about it and get that butterfly feeling, I stop and take the time to visualize myself performing in the event exactly as I would like myself to. If it's a race, I visualize myself feeling strong and smooth, moving through my transitions with ease, feeling relaxed and loose on the course, moving across the finish line with energy left to spare. The real key in visualizations for me is to make them as specific as possible. I really use my imagination to see everything exactly as I want it to go.

Another thing I find really helpful is to have little mantras that I repeat to myself. One from my competitive skydiving days is this little conundrum: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, therefore slow is fast. That keeps me from getting amped up and wasting energy in random directions. Another mantra that I use whenever I start letting myself get whiny about whatever situation I'm in is: It's a privelege and a gift to be here today. So you're running and it's a million degrees outside and you have a blister and your Accelerade is sloshing around in your stomach and you want to puke?? Well, it's still a privilege and a gift to be doing that. It is, it really is. Sometimes it takes a few times of repeating that one for it to sink in to my brain though, LOL. Sometimes I have to remind myself of the passage in The Hiding Place where Corrie's sister Betsy says a prayer for the fleas of the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Now there's a book to remind one of what to be grateful for.

So these are the things I'll be talking over with my TNT folks in the upcoming weeks: letting go of perfectionism, creating positive visualizations, using mantras to remind ourselves of what is really important. Hopefully some or all of those will be helpful.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can

You remember reading that corny story about the Little Engine Who Could when you were a kid? My son was so into trains that I read any book with a train theme to him approximately 10,000 times. So I read "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can" many times over those years. Yesterday in karate we were doing pushups and our sensei had us yelling with each pushup "I...am...a...future...black...belt" over and over. The ol' Power of Positive Thinking gig. Sometimes we can let ourselves believe that this kind of stuff is "just BS" or really doesn't work. But lately I've seen the results of positive thinking in a big way that confirmed what I've known anecdotally throughout my life.

Just recently, the kids on my robotics team have shown me all over again what kind of power you have when you refuse to be told you can't do something. I have to admit, as they dreamed big about going to the World Championships, there was that nagging adult voice in my brain that said "Don't let them get their hopes up too high or they'll be disappointed." So I tried to be the voice of reason, I tried to tell them that the odds were big, we were one small, relatively new team out of 10,000 teams worldwide. It was all stacked against us, but I was all for them trying. But they knew better. Somehow, they knew that they could do this. When I gathered them together at a local ice cream shop and told them the exciting news, there was no outburst of surprise. They blinked a few times and then smiled. They knew. They knew they could do this all along. I was the one who was not with the game, and that's a great lesson for me to take away. We can do so much more than we think we can if we refuse to let ourselves be limited.

This week, I checked out the DVD of Rudy from the library for our family to watch. If you love sports, any kind of sports, or cinderella stories, you've got to check out Sean Astin in this role. It's not a recent movie, but it's the true story of a kid who really wouldn't take no for an answer. From a blue collar family, he dreamed that one day he would play football for Notre Dame. Despite economic & educational obstacles and his own short stature, he refused to stop believing in his dream, and you know, he accomplished it too.

When I think about my Team in Training team members, the obstacles they're facing and overcoming on a daily basis, it inspires me. I love getting phone calls like the ones I got this week from team members: "I swam and it felt effortless!", "I ran for over an hour, can you believe that!", and all of this just because people think they can do something as amazing as a triathlon!

So yes, when my karate sensei has us all hollering about being a blackbelt, I'll yell it out "loud and proud" as they say in class. Because I do believe it. I can already see that black belt out there in my future, just like my kids could see that world championship in front of them. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....

Conditioning

Our karate dojo has a "theme of the month" that all of the senseis spend time discusssing during class. This month, the theme is "conditioning". Now my kids are groaning because their sensei took that to heart and had them do two-hundred jumping jacks, and one-hundred squats and crunches for warmups. But my sensei took the opportunity to speak about conditioning in a more wholistic way than I have heard the word used before.

Normally, when we think of conditioning we think of our lungs, our heart, our legs. We think of building a base of time and distance and getting our body used to a level of exercise that will allow us to be healthy, or perhaps allow us to pursue a specific athletic goal. I have to admit that when it comes to conditioning in karate, my goal is just to get to the point where my legs won't quiver after three minutes spent in shiko dachi (a deep squat with feet and knees turned out that is a common stance in karate). But this time, our sensei was reading a selection from Coach Wootten, a basketball legend. He talked about the importance of "moral, spiritual, mental, physical, and emotional" conditioning.

Sports can be a very self-centered thing at times. This can bring a real benefit to our lives - it can allow us time to be "self-centered" in the most positive aspect of that phrase, as in centering ourselves. The time spent in thought on a long run or ride can give us the ability to bring serenity and peace to our interactions throughout the rest of the day. It can give us time to think, to reflect, and to plan our actions instead of simply reacting to events that occur. But self-centered also can have negative connotations. A recent thread at Trifuel.com disussed guilt and a feeling that in spending the majority of one's time and money in training for triathlons, one might be in fact disconnecting from the real world, from problems and issues that face many people. It might be a way to escape from issues that demand our attention, a way to avert our eyes inward from problems that need addressing.

When we look at our conditioning as not just physical however, we have an opportunity to address those issues. When we make it a goal to condition not only our body but our moral, mental, and spiritual selves, we can set aside time and money for activities that help others, bring spiritual enlightenment, or promote mental awareness. So this winter, I'm making it a goal to not just condition my legs, lungs, and heart, but to build a "base" of mental, moral, spiritual, and physical health. Anyone feel like joining me? What are your "conditioning" goals this year?

Now That's Better!

It's TT time again and let's see, what was improved from last week.... rest, nutrition, hydration, warmup, organization, gear... yep, this time I was prepared. And had a terrific ride and if I'm not mistaken a PR on the course. I don't have my official time yet, and as I rode past the timekeeper's stand they called out "Race Number!" - I guess my number wasn't pinned visibly enough - so I didn't get my exact time off of my bike computer in all the confusion. I think it was around 40:40 though (at least that's my hope), which would be a minute and a half better than last time if so.

I do know that I got passed by three people on the course (all men), and I passed three people (two women and a man), so I was even in the count (keeping track of that helps me pass the miles as I push my quadriceps to the bursting point and try to blow up my heart - did I forget to mention that time trials hurt. A lot.) The women were both from the local women's team and they both had disc wheels (which I envied) and both of them had to be at least 1:30 or more ahead of me at the start because the three riders in front of me were all male. So that was pretty cool!

It was a gorgeous evening (sorry, I didn't take time to snap photos with my phone camera) with shining sun, only a light breeze, and enough warmth to go in just jersey and shorts. If I hadn't been busy exploding my heart and quads, it might have been pretty enjoyable out there. We had another nice little brick to cool down (and as much as I'm not really a runner, I do enjoy these because they feel nice after all that hard work on the bike.) All in all a good night for some hard work, and I did my best out there. I'll be curious to see where my time falls, but doing my personal best is what really matters so I'm a happy gal tonight!

Practice Success

Someone recently asked me some questions about how I got through the Ironman mentally. I typed up a relatively long answer for her, and decided it's probably worth sharing here. These techniques can be used for any kind of sport or life situation (I used the same techniques in childbirth and with clients I assisted as a childbirth doula that I did in training for the Ironman).

Here's my answer to her:

I'm curious if you've seen Kay Porter's book The Mental Athlete. Kay is a friend from my writer's group and I think her book is an excellent resource on this subject. By the time I read it, I was already using many of her techniques myself, but I would recommend it to anyone looking to improve their mental game.

Personally, I think it's really important to "train your brain" and not just your body. In the last two hours of the Ironman, it's pretty easy to tell who has a mental plan and who does not. There is a big difference between pain and suffering. Almost everyone in the Ironman feels some pain, but it doesn't have to be suffering. There are people in those last two hours whose sole focus though is suffering, and man does that look like a hard way to go! Instead of suffering, there's a lot of mental techniques that you can use that help you work through the pain and feel positive and strong.

I have always used visualization and other mental tools in an almost unconscious way, but about twelve years ago I became much more conscious about using them in training and in my races.
Here's an overview of my mental plan for the Ironman.

Positive Visualization: Before I go to sleep at night, particularly as race day approaches, I visualize the entire course of the Ironman, seeing myself moving confidently and smoothly with power and grace through all three sports and the transitions. At the end, I see myself crossing the finish line, feel myself smiling, exhausted and happy.

In any moments during the day when I feel myself becoming anxious or nervous about the Ironman, I replace those thoughts immediately with a mini-visualization. Perhaps I just focus on whatever I'm nervous about, or perhaps I just see myself crossing the finish line. Basically, I practice success. Incidentally, I used this technique during pregnancy with each of my kids, and my first birth went *exactly*, and I mean minute-by-minute exactly the way I visualized it.

Visualization In Action: When I'm training, I use any difficult times to visualize myself overcoming obstacles in the race. As an example, in one of my long bike rides this summer, it was unexpectedly very hot. By coincidence, the road I had chosen to finish my ninety mile ride on was hillier than I remembered it (or at least, I had never ridden it at the end of a ninety mile ride before!), and the hills were all facing the late afternoon sun. I was exhausted, overheated, and definitely hurting. So at that moment, I chose to visualize myself in a difficult moment in the Ironman. I saw myself in the heat, with a large hill in front of me. I focused my mind on believing that making it up that hill meant I would finish the Ironman. So I powered up that hill. I did the same with the next hill and the next hill, and then I was up and over the last hill. In the actual Ironman, I could call on that ability to work through a difficult patch by recalling that I had faced down difficult obstacles in my training and overcome them.

Specific Distraction: I had decided ahead of time on a race day plan for the marathon. I divided it into four quarters of 6 miles each (I left out the first and last miles, because I figured the excitement and crowds at the finish line would carry me through those). I decided that I would take a mental journey across my home state of Oregon. The first quarter of the marathon would be the Eastern Oregon high desert. The second quarter would be the Cascades down the center of Oregon, the third would be the Willamette River valley, where I live, and the fourth would be the Oregon coast. At any point, if I felt my concentration or physical abilities faltering, I would focus on memories from my life that occured in that section of Oregon. This was extremely helpful to me in the last half of the marathon when my foot injury was more or less excruciating. I called up camping trips I'd taken as a child, college road trips, watching my own kids at the beach, running with my dog on trails, anything and everything to fill my body with happy memories and positive feelings. It really worked!

Energy Visualization: I have some visualizations surrounding energy that I find helpful. I can visualize a golden light above my head, and my breath drawing in the light and when I exhale I send it to all parts of my body. This light carries with it a sensation of healing and peace. I can't really use that one during the race, but I use it when I'm relaxing after hard workouts to help my muscles heal and relax. I know it sounds really woo woo, but it works so who cares :-)

During the race I focused on the energy that all of my friends and family were sending me. I knew a lot of them were tracking me on Ironmanlive.com and were following my progress on the course. I would concentrate on feeling their good wishes and their prayers and energy and let that feeling buoy me up and give me strength. I also visualized my husband and kids waiting for me at the finish line, and how great it would be to see them as I came in. They supported me so much through the whole training process, so I dres on that during the race.

In the tough parts of the race, I also called up memories of other extremely difficult times in my life. Times when I faced large obstacles and worked through them. I remembered how strong I'd been in childbirth, how I summited Mt. Kilimanjaro when I was so affected by the altitude that I felt sick. I remembered the time I almost drowned while surfing, and just kept coming up for air between the waves. All of those things are part of my strength, and I can call on them (incidentally, during childbirth I called upon memories of triathlons I had done to get me through!). This is another form of drawing energy for me - drawing energy from past accomplishments and challenges.

Affirmations: I have several phrases that I use as affirmations that help me keep my mind and energy focused in the right place. They are almost like mantras in a way, and I will sometimes use them repetitively if I am in a tight spot, or I can use them as something to muse on or think about. One of my affirmations is "It is a privilege and a gift to be on this road today." There's also things like "I feel strong. I am committed. I will finish this race." Things like that

Thoreau Said it All

The quote in the journal that I've been using all year to record my training and experiences:

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

Reading that today as I wrote down my race splits and then closed the cover, I realized how important that quote was to me every day as I trained, and how true it rings now.

Here's to everyone out there, putting one foot in front of the other in the direction of your dreams.