Good Days and Bad Days

While I'm never joyously leaping out of bed at 4:45 a.m., this morning was particularly tough. I briefly considered going back to sleep and calling in sick. Then I thought maybe I'd sleep another few hours, skip the run, and then swim and bike after work. But I knew I needed to get up. I had too much do and after work is too risky. I ended up flipping my run from lunch to the morning and moving my swim from morning to lunch so I could sleep a little later and at 5:30 am dragged myself out of bed and headed out for a run. I had to shorten my swim a little due to time constraints at lunch. Swimming is really perplexing. Some days it's great and other days I feel like a rock. After warming up, I thought today was going to be one of those "rock" days, but I ended up with a good, hard effort swim. The challenge for me will be to get on my bike after work. My bike fitness is what is seriously lacking, so it's crucial I do not skip this workout; however, it's so difficult for me to find the motivation after work to get on my bike.

Lately, I've thought a lot about the emotional side of Ironman training. On one of the triathlon forums I frequent someone expressed the following sentiments regarding Ironman training: "Every morning I wake up and can't believe I gotta do it all over again." I understand how that feels.

So much of Ironman training is physical. It's about pushing your limits and seeing how far your body can take you. We all talk about HR zones, minutes logged and the miles and miles we cover, but beyond that there is another side to training, the emotional side that can be just as challenging at times. Now that we're in full swing Ironman training season, this topic is coming up more and frequently and it seems most of us experience some level of training blues from time to time. The frustrations come from having to give up other aspects of our livest to fit in the ever increasing training load, from disappointment in our training performance, from missing training due to life getting in the way, and from the constant thoughts of making it to the finish line.

Training has been an emotional rollercoaster for sure. My cycle of happiness tends to run about four weeks, then inevitably I hit a rough patch for anywhere from a day to a week where I wonder why the heck I do this and how I'm ever going to be trained enough to finish the race. But then something usually happens to snap me back and it all becomes clear. I do this because I love it. I do this because I can and I know I won't always be able to. I do this because life just isn't rewarding enough without significant challenges and this is by far the greatest challenge I've ever had.

Someday my body will not be able to do this. Today is not that day. I think about this a lot. There were times in the past my body couldn't do this and I know there will be times in the future. So even though I am tired and my legs feel heavy today, I know I could do this and that fills me with a level of satisfaction that is unexplainable. It makes me thankful.