Gearing [Week 4; 16 To Go]
Race Week [Week 5; 15 To Go]
Speed Bumps [Week 6; 14 To Go]
Recovery Weeks [Week 7; 13 To Go]
The above are titles to posts that I have started in the last 3 weeks.....and haven't finished..obviously. Here is my attempt to catch up and hopefully you can see the messages I was looking to get across in each of those posts.
After a pretty long/tough winter in these here northern parts, I finally get outside for some bike rides, and I'm s-l-ooooo-wwwww. Or at least I feel slow - I still don't have my computer on my bike to tell me cadence, mph, etc... And even worse, the hills I used to fly up with little effort made my quads burn even in the easiest gear. One of the most important things to being an efficient biker, and even more important for triathletes hopping off their bike to start the run, is gearing when you ride, specifically on hills. You don't want your cadence to drop so much that you burn out your legs, but you don't want to gear too easy too early and spend too much time climbing, easy spinning or not. If you know your course you have an advantage to knowing how tough the upcoming hills are before you are actually on it and can execute the perfect gearing plan throughout the climb. But how often do we know, especially in a race, what that hill in front of us is really like until we're in the middle of it?
We recently received news of very close family members in a serious accident. They are alive and recovering every day. It's the kind of call you dread. It's a life changer certainly for those injured - and even for those who know and love them as well. How do we all react to this unexpected hill in front of us? Even if we gear poorly in the beginning, to the point that we have to get off our bike because it's too hard to pedal, we can walk our bike to the top, hop back on, and coast down with that glorious free speed.
I came back from my trip visiting family pretty wiped, and my first race was less than a week away. I plugged through my workouts as best I could. Dusted off my wetsuit (literally, after I found it hidden in the depths of the basement). Assembled my race gear the night before and hoped for the best.
It was awesome :)
I pumped in the car on the way to the race. We temporarily parked while I set up my transition area. Dad hung with T till I returned. (parking lot was about 3/4 miles away). I hung with T until Dad parked and returned. I nursed at a picnic table just before I zipped up my wetsuit and hopped in the water. And I was OFF! Dad did an awesome job getting to spots where I would see them, and finishing with my 5 mo old son as my trophy was beyond joy. Moms......you can do this!
Dads you can too :) One Dad I know....had a bit of a setback last week with a back injury. After a few days of significant pain, he was pretty worried that it might be something serious. At 'our age' when you have back pain, it's easy to think the worst as we know so many folks who have back problems that affect their daily life. Short of the long, he's much better. After a visit to the chiro and some rest, he's bummed about the lack of fitness that happened that week, but he's in less pain, which is a win in my book. He's has a planned race this weekend as well. Go Dad!
How do we approach plans that we aren't as prepared for as we would like? How do we answer that call to ourselves? Do we just not show up because we aren't as prepared as we planned and we won't have as fast of a race? Do we show up with excuses and a bad attitude? Do we remember the back pain and feel thankful that we actually can race and the season isn't scrapped? Do we look at that lack of exercise as rest, feel rested for the race, and set an example for our kids to at least try?
Never give up, even when you fall so far behind it feels like you might as well give up because it isn't turning out like you planned and there's no way you can fulfill your initial goals. Case in point - This Blog. I had grand aspirations of posting this blog once a week. When I finally started I thought "how hard can it be to find an hour each week to get my thoughts out in a blog?" Turns out - pretty hard. And this morning on our walk I thought, "this isn't what I planned, this isn't what I wanted, this will never be what I had envisioned because I'm already behind. Why don't I just quit and I'll do it when I have more time?" Because I'll never have more time. I'll never know what card will come up next - so I'm going to do the best I can today.
DH always says "Win the Day!" And we struggle....every day....to live that - BUT WE TRY - and that's something.
