Sardines and Seals

It seems to me that there comes a point in a training cycle that I am doing OK, putting in twelve to fifteen hours a week, everything is fine, but then I get a hangnail or something and free-fall off of the plan. Something doesn't go right, I have a bad day, get a boo-boo, whatever, and I just cant muscle up to go run or cant get up at 4:40 to go swim before work. Whatever it is, I just want to surrender and eat ice cream. Maybe you are mentally impervious to any kind of interruption to your training, but I am not. My mental toughness disappeared with the Reagan administration.

You know that drinking game that you played when you were twenty and trying to get horizontal with the girl who was pretty hot but super liberal and kept talking about saving some stupid seals on the ice in Nova Scotia? The drinking game was where you said which historical figure you would want to meet if you you could or what forest animal you would be if you had to choose one? OK, I was running and I got to thinking about it and so, if I had to do that now, I would meet Thomas Jefferson and I would be a deer. I don't really know why I want to meet Jefferson, I just feel obligated to have an answer to that question, but I know I would be a deer because deer always take the easy path. They never go over the mountain, the go around. I know this because if you go into the woods, the deer trail never goes straight up and straight down. The trail takes the longer path around. That's me, I take the easy trail. That's why I would be a deer. That and deer are pretty low on the food chain, sort of on par with sardines.

When I am doing my best imitation of Ironman training and things go south, I freak out and fall into that trap of getting overrun with emotional responses to pain. I forget the logic behind it all and head straight to the nearest fetal position. A little bit of pain and I start to become the deer, looking for the easiest way out. It's a huge metaphor, but its true.

I have used these all in the past 12 months;
'My foot hurts so I can't run'
'My legs are tired so I can't ride'
'I am just not feeling it today'
'I have to get my hair cut'
'I have to drive my wife to get her hair cut'.

 It's all the same. I have used them all. I ended up in that hole last weekend and I found a bunch of excuses I didn't know I owned. When my wife asked me why I took so long to run 10 miles on Saturday, I said 'I ran out of gas, I forgot to bring a gel'. On Sunday, when my riding partners asked me why I was riding so slow, I said 'I am gassed from my run yesterday'. They just picked me up off the ground, put me back on my bike, and rode away. I caught up with them the next day. I used bad words and called them bad names. They deserved it.

I was thinking about the hot liberal gal with the bad case of diarrhea mouth talking about the seals while I was running last Saturday and I realized that when I run, I go through transitional phases. My opinions change in a short time frame, based on my mood.

The first mile I thought, 'ya, I could save some seals. If they were cute, I would save a couple of seals'.
Mile five, I was thinking, 'screw the seals, let them take care of themselves.' It's a tough world and the sooner the seals learn it, the better.  I am actually doing them a favor.
Mile nine, I was looking for a club with a pointy tip to bash in their little baby seal skulls. I feel bad now, but last Saturday, I was trying really hard to come up with a profit plan involving dead seal pelts.

When I got home Saturday, I was too tired to reach over and grab the clicker, so I had to watch 'I Love Lucy' in Spanish. It was the one where they had to work in the candy factory and the candy came too fast and it falls off the end of the assembly line, then Lucy eats the candy to keep it from falling. It's funny in English, but for some reason, it's hilarious in Spanish. Maybe it's because they don't talk in that part, I don’t know, but it's dang funny. Anywho, to bring this bad boy home, my training is like that factory belt. It just keeps coming and coming. But that is Ironman. It's a big nut to crack.  If you want to wear the shirt, you gotta pay the price.