Sophomore Slump

I'm suffering from a mild case of Sophomore-itis. My second Ironman race is looking like it will be much different than my first one. I spent the previous 14 months training hard for my first Ironman, and I was focused on that goal like a laser. It was easy to stay on target for IM, I was scared shitless of race day. I worried about the unending pain, the heat of the Arizona desert, running my first marathon, and my history of dehydration. My confidence in my physical ability increased throughout the training, but even on race morning I knew there was a good chance I would end up in the medical tent with an IV in my arm, and a DNF on my record. Fear kept me going strong for 14 months - it's one hell of a motivator.

Today is the start of my second week back to training. It's been easy stuff so far, short easy runs, test sets in the pool, and a single ridiculously short bike ride on saturday. But somewhere along the way I lost my fear, and my motivation has waned. I still have goals, but I noticed that the nature of my goals has fundamentally changed. My goals have always been about proving to myself that I could complete something. Can I swim across La Jolla Cove? Can I climb a mountain? Can I complete a half marathon without walking? Can I ride my bike 100 miles? 200 miles? I always tried to be as fast as I could at everything I attempted, but that was never my focus. I was trying to prove that I could do it, not that I was fast at it. I'm not a world class athlete, and the idea that there are lots of people faster than me is easy to accept. I have never thought of myself as a competitive person - though I have some friends who might disagree!

2009's goals are a little different. They're less about completing events, and more about performing well in them. This is a radically different mindset than I am used to. It requires a more aggressive race strategy, and also more risky. My old "just complete the race" mindset caused me to think of a DNF as the worst possible thing that could ever happen. This idea leads to a very conservative race plan - save your energy in case you need it later. Of course I ended up tired at the end of races, but normally I felt fine a few hours later - or certainly by the next morning. This mindset also lead me to the most dangerous situation I've had during my triathlon career - I refused to quit on a 14 hour bike ride in the 120 degree California desert. Even after my legs cramped so badly that they could no longer support my body weight, I kept going. I eventually did call it quits that day - but I had passed the threshold of sensibility long before that point, and it very easily could have ended badly. With a performance based mindset however, things are much different. I need to "leave it all on the course", and I probably will take much longer to recover after a race than before. I also need to be ready for my first DNF in a race. If I'm racing on the red line, then my likelihood of misjudging is greater, and my margin for error is smaller. Is going faster worth risking a DNF? This is the year I find out.

So here I am, 1 week into a 10 month season - and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't want to do anything, I'm going through the motions like a zombie. My workouts are easy, but I'm not doing them very well - even a 5 mile run hurts. I certainly don't feel like an Ironman. I've lost my appetite completely, and I'm only eating because I know that I need to in order to fuel my workouts. I went from training 20 hours a week a month ago, to only 7 hours this week - and all the spare time I have is boring me to tears. I started watching TV again, that evil succubus. I watched an entire season of Dexter this week. Spoiler alert: he's a serial killer and he spends the whole season killing people. Why did I waste my time on that?! God help me if I get sucked into watching the NFL again.

Here's hoping the fear returns. Maybe I'll find something new to be afraid of. Maybe the crazy weather and insane hills of Wisconsin will be enough to get my fire burning again. Maybe the idea of failure will drive me to the next peak. Maybe the threat of disappointing my coach and training partners will fuel me to excel. Or maybe I won't need fear at all? Maybe I'll find inspiration instead. I don't know what it is that will get me through my next 140.6 mile event - but the smart money is on me achieving what I set out to do. I don't like to lose.

Triathlon as an Expression of Free Will

Why do we do the things we do? Our hobbies, our beliefs, our occupations? Far too often the answer is a lamentable "convenience". For me, I fall into this convenience pattern for long stretches - then snap myself out of it with radical, grand gestures.
I am a professional software engineer. That came easy for me because I was good at math, and I enjoyed computers. So I got an engineering degree, studied computer science and started working. It was the path of least resistance, I just did what came naturally to me. I moved to Chicago because that's where the jobs were, it all just made sense. I don't mean to say that any of that was easy - my undergraduate degree was the toughest thing I've ever done, it made Ironman look like a game of paddy cake. And moving away from everyone I knew was tough, as was living on my own and being broke. Don't get me wrong - I love writing software, and embedded systems is my passion. I found the right career for me, no doubt. But I got there by taking the easy path - by using my god given strengths.
I had been an athlete as a kid. I focused on basketball early on, and though I was short I did OK. I played at the high school level and then very briefly in college. I was 18 and learned quickly that I did not have the talent to play at that level, and the amount of work I needed to put in to compete would have destroyed my grades. So I quit basketball during the fall of my freshman year, which would end up being the most heart wrenching breakup I have ever suffered. That day I stopped being an athlete, and became an engineer. It was a good career choice, I have a low VO2max and a high capacity for technical learning. I started drinking soda, I started eating pizza and fast food, I started watching TV, I started living like an engineer.
I took all of these habits with me when I got my first apartment and started working. I had blossomed up to 190 pounds or so when I graduated college, from the 165 of my basketball days. It was no big deal to me, I didn't feel fat and I was now more of a thinker than a laborer. That first year in Chicago I was broke and working long hours, so I ate out at lunch and my dinner was always something easy. Mac and Cheese or frozen pizza. I would sometimes eat a family size Jello pudding box as a treat. Eventually I had disposable income, and in came the luxuries. I bought a lazy-boy recliner and an overstuffed couch, holy crap do I love those. I bought a large screen TV, and subscribed to the NFL Sunday Ticket - and spent every Sunday watching 10+ hours of football, to the point where it gave me headaches. I was exhausted without ever leaving my couch. I bought a Tivo the first day it was on the market (at the early adopter price of only $750!) and instantly fell in love. This new toy allowed me to not just watch TV, but to watch everything on TV. And I did. To paraphrase Dean Karnazes "I was so comfortable I was miserable".
Eventually I moved in with an old college buddy of mine. I don't remember why, but we started working out together - mostly jogging. We were never very consistent, and I hated every minute of it - so eventually I bought a bike. A mountain bike, to ride on the pavement in Chicago - brilliant. I rode it on a 12 mile loop in a nearby park pretty regularly (until the snow got deeper than a few inches) and even to work a few times. Eventually I stopped riding. I moved to California with a new job, and started working harder than ever, which returned me to my slovenly ways.
Then in June of 2006 I got the dust off my mountain bike and rode it to work. I don't remember why - I probably saw someone riding on the road as I was driving to work one day, or maybe it was high gas prices. I weighed 210 pounds that day. The seven miles from my apartment to work felt like a million. But it was great - I bragged about my epic ride to all my co-workers. I started riding to work regularly for the next month, almost every day. There's something magical and deeply rewarding about being a bike commuter - I recommend it to everyone. Then, it happened. A college friend who also had moved to San Diego recommended I get a road bike. He told me those knobby tires were slowing me down, and I needed to upgrade. So I started looking, and like most first time bicycle purchasers I was shocked at the prices! What happened to getting a $100 bike at Wal-Mart? I bought a medium end road bike for twice what I originally wanted to spend - and began riding it both to work and with a local bike club on Saturdays. I fell in love - head over heals with cycling. As an engineer I liked the practical brilliance of a bike - the sheer efficiency of it all - the precision of the components. But there was more, something visceral about riding a bike. Everything looks different when you're traveling by self locomotion. I started to think of my body as a machine that turns food into rotational motion, and my bike as a machine that turns rotational motion into translational motion. That lead me to eat a little better. And each week I got a little faster on those club rides.
I talked about cycling with everyone who would listen. My good friends NS and SP suggested that I do a triathlon. Me? A triathlon? I had seen Ironman on TV - triathlon was serious. Plus, I hate the water. I'm scared of the ocean, and I hadn't been in a swimming pool in 20 years - and I was only 28 years old.
So I thought about it. I couldn't swim. I liked to cycle, but was far from being competitive. I couldn't run a mile without wheezing - and I cursed every step along the way. As a geek at heart I have always admired NASA and the Apollo moon missions. I thought back to a speech John F. Kennedy gave that launched the space program in 1962:

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy - but because they are hard! Because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win!"

I had no ability - no talent as a triathlete. And that thought clinched it. I chose to become a triathlete not because it was easy - but because it was hard. It was ludicrous. I signed up for Wildflower and didn't tell anyone other than NS and SP - because it was so ridiculous an idea that everyone would laugh at me. And I secretly thought I wouldn't be able to do it. I had moved cities three times since the last time I did anything athletic. None of my current friends would have believed that I was training for a triathlon. Even NS and SP whom I had known for over 10 years had never imagined me as an athlete, and were shocked when I told them I had played basketball.
I learned to swim. I became a cyclist. I survived my running. I raced Wildflower and kicked ass. I discovered ocean swimming. I lost 40 pounds. I became an Ironman. I lived one more piece of my dream.

That's why I race. Because my life is my own. To prove I'm not bound by the restrictions and stereotypes of my career. That I choose the person I will be tomorrow. To push myself beyond the limits I once believed I had. To prove that I can do anything I choose. That I don't fit in a box.

Go ahead, try to box me in. I dare you.