Sometimes, writing is the best antidote. A few days ago, I lamented the breakdown of my usual self-discipline. Most of the month of March had gone by and I had logged only nine workouts, compared at least five and often six that I usually achieve. With the breakdown had come a lapse into some bad habits that I associate with excess workaholism: a lack of sleep, a turn toward chocolate, sugary soft drinks, and other junky high calorie snacks. I posted the lament, went to sleep, and woke up the next morning with every intention to get back on the wagon and set myself right.
Three days later, it feels happily as if I might be on the road to recovery. I have moved my body three days in a row, including the running of a 5K this morning that was nearly one minute faster over my time in the same race last year. I also have logged three nights with eight hours of sleep, and a wonderful nap this afternoon following the 5K. It’s one of these moments where I feel like I can declare that Moving Your Body is like learning how to ride a bike. Once you’ve got the basic principles down, you never forget.
I am looking now to April with a renewed sense of energy. Starting Monday, March 31, I will have 18 weeks to train for the Fronhofer Tool Triathlon and 26 weeks for the Adirondack Marathon. I find myself looking forward to beginning my training for both — but with a certain degree of anxiety, especially where the triathlon is concerned.
A few weeks ago, my husband Jim and I attended an annual Fitness Expo at the Saratoga Springs Convention Center. While there, I met a woman who recognized me from a couple of places I frequent: the Saratoga YMCA, where she and I both swim; and the Fronhofer course where she was a volunteer lifeguard and had run the final tenth of a mile of the course as I crossed the line long after everyone else had finished.
“You were fantastic,” she said.
I laughed. “And I came in last place. I was so far behind everyone else! But it’s okay. I’m going for it again this year, and I’m totally focused on doing better.”
“That’s what I mean by fantastic,” she said. “Your attitude all the way through is just amazing.”
I saw her a couple of days ago at the Y, as I was preparing to swim. She told me she doesn’t train for triathlons anymore. She just likes to swim. Very long distances, it turns out. “I don’t have anything I need to prove anymore,” she said with a laugh.
I laughed back. “Apparently, I still do.”
Behind our conversation was the issue of triathlon training itself. It seems unduly competitive and complicated for something that should be simply fun. When I had bumped into her at the Fitness Expo, I had asked why there were so few “slower” competitors. Her response was that once you get on a “certified course” and once you’re doing a distance longer than a “sprint”, the recreational athletes disappear and the diehards dominate.
Hmm, I wondered. It seems like I might qualify as a diehard. Is it possible for a diehard to not be fast?
Over the past couple of months, I have been scrolling through triathlon training programs on the Internet. I even read a triathlon training book: Joe Friel’s The Triathlete’s Training Bible. Great material with a lot of good advice. But when it comes down to mapping out the training program, it seems like the fun disappears. Or, at least what feels like fun to me. Training emphasizes speed, force, and endurance. Workouts place priority on intervals, hills, sprints, and concepts like pushing yourself to certain aerobic or anaerobic thresholds. Phrases like VO2 max that I vaguely understand but don’t really know how to follow get thrown around a lot. I know that I can do more research and that over time as my household budget loosens up invest in training tools and devices to improve my standings in these areas. But I find myself worrying and wondering whether this is the kind of training that I really want. Maybe I’m a hedonist, but exercise and fitness feel like they should be pleasurable activities, not this much work.
Which led me to wonder if training anxiety helped contribute to the March slump.
“It seems,” I wrote in my longhand journal this afternoon, “that one can make training enjoyable with a few basic steps.”
Going a few steps further enabled me to identify those basic steps: a couple of days — oh, maybe Tuesdays and Thursdays — for speed work. One day a week for an endurance workout — maybe a Sunday. Four days left over to do the relaxed, easier workouts — with at least one of those four days being a day of rest and ideally three of the remaining days being the workouts that make training fun in the first place.
We’ll see how it pans out, as April unfolds.