Training With Attitude

Training at altitude

Summer is in high gear. The Fronhofer Tool Olympic Distance Triathlon is seven weeks away, and the Adirondack Marathon is fifteen weeks away. I’ve been on the road for three weeks and currently am writing from Salt Lake City, Utah, where I’ll be for another five days. The travel has thrown a few blips into my training plan, but it also has created some unexpected opportunities. Those opportunities have helped put the joy back into training, and have helped me see moving one’s body in an entirely new light.
That new perspective has been of especial value in helping me shrug off the fact that I might not make it to the starting line for either one of the events.

So let’s dispense with the bad news first. Why might I not make it to the starting line? The reasons have to do with family medical matters and personal finances, and not at all with my level of personal fitness, health, or current pace of training. In the past, such a scenario might have devastated me. For some reason, this year, it does not bother me at all. I know that there are still several more years of marathons and triathlons left inside me, and I am continuing to training as if I will be at the start line for both of these events.

It was with that attitude in mind that I decided around mid-morning that today would be a perfect day to run to the Olympic pool in the Salt Lake City Sports Complex (which was built for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games), swim in the pool, and run back to the downtown hotel where I am staying while serving as a reader for AP Government and Politics exams. The run was seven miles round trip, and the swim that I did today was 1,300 meters. This is no small feat for one who is not a regular Salt Lake City inhabitant. The altitude here is about 4,300 feet above sea level — and the run up to the sports complex was an uphill. I live in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, but even with that claim to fame, home base is about 700 feet.

Technically, too, today — a Saturday — should have been a rest day. I swam 2,000 meters on Monday, walked about 2 miles during airport layovers on Tuesday, walked 8 miles and swam an additional 2,000 meters when I first got to Salt Lake City on Wednesday, ran 5.3 miles in the city on Thursday, and cycled 12.4 miles on a recumbent bike on Friday. But the reading of AP exams requires a lot of sitting, and the supplies of caffeine, soft drinks, and high-sugar snacks to keep the readers moving is more than generous. My body seemed to demand an additional workout.

And, so during a lunch break, I dashed back to my hotel and put on my swim suit underneath a sports bra, technical shirt, and running shorts. I replaced my walking sandals with running shoes, and spent the afternoon sipping water and doing my best to avoid the high sugar snacks while reading. After the work day was done, I strapped a small backpack on and began a slow jog up the road from downtown to the Foothills neighborhood of the city.

The run initially felt like a slog. My body was stiff from sitting, and I knew I had been working out all week. I also wanted to remain mindful of the altitude because I knew that even though I had been in the city for a few days, my body might not be fully adjusted for what I was preparing to do. In addition, I knew I probably would not be able to do the workout and get back in time for the nightly dinner provided to readers, and would have to plunk down a few dollars for a meal on my own. All of these obstacles almost convinced me to turn back. But as my body warmed up and my lungs took in the clean mountain air, I experienced an exhilarating change in attitude. I was running at altitude and having the time of my life.

The workout only got better as I got to the pool. Nestled outdoors and surrounded by mountains, its waters gleamed in the sunlight. Most of the lanes also were empty, which was different from what I had experienced a few days earlier when anywhere from five to eight swimmers were sharing lanes. I jumped in and began swimming in a smooth, rhythmic fashion. I had planned to stop after 1,000 meters, but the pace felt so good that I continued a little more. I then visited the hot tub, dried myself off, and put the sports bra that I had been wearing earlier back on over my suit, in preparing for the downhill return run.
I let myself do the return run much as I had done the uphill run — at a gentle relaxed pace, focusing on rhythm and breath. And, as I ran, my mind went back to an acquaintance with whom I had caught up earlier yesterday: a professor at a university in Connecticut whom I had met at the annual AP reading several years earlier. She is considerably younger than me, and in incredibly good shape. I first met her in 2008, a few months before I ran what I had thought would be my last marathon. She had just begun running marathons and was training for an Ironman. Over the years, she did several marathons and several Ironmans. Every time we met up, she asked me what races I was planning to do.

I was overweight and out of shape. My work schedule also was highly unpredictable, and I had more or less decided that while fitness could still be a part of my life training for big events was a thing of the past. Her questions and her unwillingness to accept me as fat and un-fit, however, would linger with me, reminding me that there were other paths, that I could still train, that I could still run a marathon and potentially compete in an Ironman if I put my mind to it.
Before yesterday, I last saw her in 2011. I remember asking her how she managed to train while holding a job that was at least as demanding as mine. She shared a few strategies, and then a few years elapsed before I saw her again.

“Are you still running?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I did a marathon last year and am training for the same one this year, and a triathlon, too. And you?”

“Several marathons so far this year, and an Ironman coming up.”

“I’m not at the Ironman yet,” I said with a laugh, “but I’m getting there.”

“Are you training here?”

“Oh yes,” I said.

“Great,” she said. “I was thinking that maybe we could run together some time.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with you,” I said in protest.

She gave me a strange look. “I just move at whatever pace,” she said.

Reflecting on the conversation as I gently jogged back to my hotel, I realized that this was what training with attitude actually meant: It’s not about how fast or how hard you’re training; it’s about training in whatever way you can do. It’s not about whether you actually make it to the starting line of a race; it’s about what you’re doing to prepare yourself for that moment.