Success Card #8

No journey is too great
if you find what you seek.
~Unknown

This is a twist on those "journey vs. destination" maxims we hear all too frequently. This is suggesting that your journey to an end, while difficult or even almost impossible, is worth it if you get what you were after. For me, the goal is the finish line at Ironman Canada. To that end, it means all the pain and anquish I endure during the trip to that finish line, which includes not just the race itself, but all of the training before hand, will be worth the effort.

I'll have to keep that in mind today, as I head out for my 5 hour and 20 minute ride. For now, I'm waiting for the fog to lift as riding in the fog is dangerous even when you have lights on your bike and mine have none. I don't even have a rear reflector (the reflective strip on my bike bag doesn't exactly count).

Yesterday was another challenge. I went out with my hubby to a local 5k/10k fun run. It was the inaugural event for this race. My plan was to do the 10k, which would take me in the neighborhood of an hour and ten minutes (I was figuring conservatively), then run home, which was another 7 or 8 miles away. If, by that time, I hadn't run for 2 hours and 50 minutes, I would just keep on running.

Well, I finished the race in 1:03:15. Not bad, but not a PR (dang), however, I admit to trying to hold myself back some as I knew I still had a long way to run that day (I did the same thing at last week's St. Patrick's Day Dash dressed as you see here--what you can't see are the green tights I'm wearing. We are such goofballs).

After the 10k, I found myself in the gymnasium chatting with my husband and several of the local running icons. One of the women is in my age group and training for her first triathlon (Ironman Coeur d'Alene), and was the overall winner of the women's division. In other words, she was f-a-s-t! I got some water, checked the results for my husband's time (mine weren't posted yet--just too blasted slow to matter), and discovered he took 2nd in his age group. Plus they were holding a raffle. That's the long way of saying I cooled off and since I was soaking wet from the run, I did NOT want to face going back out in the drizzly, sub-40 degree weather to finish my run home. I decided to stay untill my husband got his ribbon, then I would go home, change into dry clothes and head out.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans and all that. I ended up being delayed for another couple of hours after I got home. The reasons are irrelavent, but they were important to others. So, by the time I got back out to finish another hour and 50 minutes of running, I was definitely feeling unmotivated. I had to remind myself that I like to run. I kept telling myself on the way to my chosen starting point, "You are doing this because you like to do it, not because you have to. Remember, you get to run, not you have to run."

Well, I got my Garmin 301 all ready, then I hit the button and headed out. My plan was to go to Military Rd, turn around and repeat. Turns out Military Rd was about 3 miles away. On my way out, I made note of where I was 20 minutes into the run as I figured I would have to run out that far on the return trip. I was near the power lines by the end of the wood. Okay, got it.

After I got done with that first 6 miles, I was feeling pretty wasted. But I had planned to run those miles at about an 11:30 pace, and here I was holding a sub-11:00 with a 60 second walk break every mile. That meant my pace most of the rest of the time was a sub-11:00. Good Lord, how am I going to finish this run at that rate? For goodness sake, SLOW DOWN, idiot! This is a shot of the info garnered from my Garmin.

Well, after a 6 minute water/potty break, I headed back out on the trail. I was going to try and do 2 miles out and 2 miles back. By the time I hit 20 minutes out, I was almost to the powerlines at the end of the wood. That marked 1.75 miles. I couldn't face going any further. I turned around and headed back. My legs felt wasted. I was tired and if I didn't get some food in me soon, I would also turn really, really cranky. A cranky me is not a pretty picture.

Total miles for the day, between my race and my training run, 15.8. That night, after a dinner of New York steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and Caesar salad with an appetizer of chicken strips, I had to get on my trainer for a 30 minute recovery ride. I only did 7 miles in that 30 minutes, but that was the whole point, really. Recovery. I wasn't supposed to try to go fast, or crank up the watts. It was just supposed to be an easy ride, with a comfortably high cadence. I'd say I maintained that with an average wattage of only 86, and an average cadence of 90. But that's what I found slightly ironic. I ran more miles that day than I biked. In fact, I ran more than twice as many miles as I cycled. That was just weird to me. When I was done, I went to bed. I'd had enough fun for one day. I think I slept for the next 10 hours.

Today, my legs still feel a little like stumps. Just before I went to sleep, I was reading an article about overtraining vs. adaptation. It stated (more or less) that in order to get better, we have to stretch ourselves, sometimes to the point of overtraining, but not so far that we hurt ourselves. That part of the adaptation includes feeling slightly wasted like I do today, but not so much that I can't contemplate going out on my 5 hour ride today. While it was foggy out, I admit I wasn't looking forward much to my ride. Now that the fog is clearing and it is SUNNY outside, I find I'm a little more inclined to get out there and ride. It may even be fun.

So, the whole point of all of this is that crossing that finish line in August will be worth all this agony when I'm done. I'll have accomplished something I never thought I could. My journey will be complete when I hear those words, "YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!"