“They don’t call it the ‘EASYman” is what The Boss says to me every time I whine about how hard it is training for an Ironman. And, yes, he is factually correct, it is not in fact called the Easyman, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the world’s most annoying thing to hear while suffering through the 9th speed interval on your bike training, right?
Anyway, an Ironman update: I’m quite proud of myself today for making one of the smartest training decisions I’ve made, um, quite a long time: I made someone come with me.
On tap today was a 40 minute time trial run. Even though this is a shorter workout, I haaaaaaate doing runs like this. HATE. I don’t mind intervals with rests or long runs at a comfortable pace; I can get my mind around that, I can pace that, but I have no idea how to pace for a 40 minute all out effort, and as such it ends up being 20 minutes of awesome and 20 minutes of gasping and crawling. I mostly blame this on years of doing run/walk (run for 8 minutes, walk for 2 minutes, repeat until done), which is an excellent way to build endurance and increase running confidence, but not at all appropriate for all out efforts.
(sidenote: Run/walk was how I recovered my heart from sickness and into long distance efforts. The two minute walk break gave my heart a chance to slow it’s pace down and recover, thereby not overstressing the system. Or something like that. All I know is, I went from being ‘allowed’ to run for twenty minutes to running a 50k – that is 31 miles – using run/walk. I am a huge fan. When in peak running shape, I was passing people running “for real” while I was using run/walk. I have little patience for people who dismiss it as being lame; it is in fact a tool to get in shape and run a long distance. Plus, if I’m passing you, you’ve lost your right to be dismissive, so there 😛 /sidenote)
ANYWAY. Today. 40 minutes, time trial. My definition of huge suck. SO, knowing that I was likely to start the run all gung ho and then finish with a less than honest effort, I appealed to the side of me that really means anything: shame and humiliation. Which is to say I asked someone to come with me on the run and keep me honest. I emailed out to my running group email list (that sounds fancier than it is, which is really just a group of people I know who all try to plan a weekend run. Of the entire list, maybe only 40% will meet up on a given weekend, but it’s a good resource to have), told them my workout and my pace, and asked for help, and thankfully there was a brave soul who didn’t mind braving the 30 degree weather to come out and babysit me while I ran.
Oh, thank God. I so would have bailed on this. Sure enough, it got hard halfway through, and I was uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to keep going, and whine whine whine “It’s not the Easyman” whine whine, but I mean, what was I going to do? Stop? This person had come out to run with me to get my 40 minutes in, and that’s what we were going to do. And we did.
Which just goes to show, again, for the millionth time, finishing an Ironman has about 30% to do with actually being physically fit, and 70% being smart enough to figure out how to actually do it.
InnerTeub 