Exactly What Part of This Are You Enjoying?

“Say you’re running and you start to think, Man this hurts; I can’t take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to [you].”

Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Last Sunday I finished off my peak pre-Ironman training week with a run of about three and a half hours. It was a beautiful run in every way; I ran at a very sedate pace and only started to stiffen up as I entered my fourth hour. I was wishing that the race had been that day.

The week comprised about sixteen hours of exercise all told, with lots of open water swimming and hilly biking as well as a couple of good runs. Although this doesn’t come close to the training volume of many other triathletes, it is about as much as I ever do. Over the next three weeks I will try to do something resembling a controlled taper.

The whole week was hard work. I biked for hours up and down the hills of the Muskoka 70.3 course, because it is close to my cottage, and because the topography mimics some of what Tremblant is offering up. I swam 120 metre laps in my lake over and over, trying—and seldom succeeding—to sight a straight line. I ran back and forth on my cottage road, a gravel trail with thigh-burning climbs and knee-crunching descents. It was hard work, and I loved every minute.

That’s not to say that I was completely happy, comfortable, or relaxed every minute. Exercise was not invented to be a soother. It is not lying in a hammock with a good book; it is not being cuddled and stroked; it is not a mug of hot cocoa. It is meant to place our muscles and our spirit under stress so that both can grow and strengthen.

Pedalling up a steep grade out of Death Valley one morning last winter I wondered how much I was loving it. We had stopped part way up for a group photo at Zabriskie Point and then continued to climb. It was a cool, breezy morning and my kit had turned cold and clammy against my skin while we were stopped. There was no respite from the upward grind and I knew it would be many hours before I was back in my hotel room under a hot shower. ”Exactly what part of this,” I remember asking myself, “are you enjoying?”

But would I have traded places at that moment with someone lined up at the all-you-can-eat buffet on a cruise ship? The answer is what it always is: not for anything.

Not a day at the spa

Of course, a training run or a bike ride can be totally enjoyable. On a beautiful course in perfect conditions there is no place I would rather be. But I do not head out the door in the morning looking for a day at the spa. I leave that to the spa lovers.

For me, the pleasure of a hard physical workout is a holistic thing. There are moments of discomfort interwoven with moments of intoxicating physicality and I embrace both. I am aware of every part of my body working together in concert, in a circular orchestration to move me forward; my legs pushing me along my path; my lungs processing oceans of oxygen; my heart pumping blood to power my legs. I live the effort. On top of all this is the sense that I am working toward a goal, literally moving toward it physically and mentally. I consider that each step in training takes me one step closer to the finish line in the race ahead.

On a more prosaic level, I train so that I will know what it is going to feel like to be called upon to run up a sharp hill at mile 18 of the Ironman marathon on race day, when my reserves are dwindling and the finish line still seems a long way off.  And it doesn’t always feel great. The closing miles of the Ironman marathon are seldom pain-free. Oddly though, merely being in the closing miles is one of my favourite sensations; it tells me that I might be stiff and sore, but that my training has paid off and I am close to achieving my goal.

Recently I received a note from an old friend asking if I was going to be participating in any extreme events or “other craziness” this summer. Once again I bit my email-tongue, trying not to go off on my usual rant about what I and tens of thousands of others do every year: we set a goal; we create a plan; we follow through; we work to achieve the goal. What part of that, I always want to ask, is crazy? But I never say anything anymore. There are people who understand, and people who never will. To them it is craziness not because they can’t do it, but because they can’t conceive it.

As an endurance athlete, I dream; I plan; I train; sometimes I suffer; I strive to achieve. As Margaret Mead reportedly said, we learn the value of hard work by working hard. The striving and suffering and achieving must always be their own reward. 

Take it Back to the Start

Peterborough Half Iron – July 7, 2013

“…the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started…and to know the place for the first time.”

T.S. Eliot

As I drove in the pre-dawn gloom to Peterborough Sunday for the Half Iron Triathlon, I couldn’t help recalling my first attempt at the distance, in 2001. That year, I took a wrong turn on the way to the race and got impossibly lost, arriving in transition about twenty minutes before the start, racking my bike in totally the wrong place, and madly scrambling just to get to the beach before the gun went off. In the dozen intervening years, I am proud to say that I have figured out how to get to the race site much more efficiently, although I don’t seem to have improved my racing much.

I have a longer history with the Peterborough races than with any other event— I did the very first triathlon of my life there in July 1994—and I like to think that as a triathlete, I grew up there. Although it has had more competition from other long course races in past years, the venerable Half Iron race is still a can’t-miss event in this part of the country. The combination of a deceptively hilly bike course and the open, shadeless run course make for a challenging and rewarding day, as well as a great training ground for anyone getting ready for an Ironman later in the season.

I had decided on short notice to enter this year because I wanted one more long distance race to set a benchmark for the last six weeks of my training before Mont Tremblant next month. I like to be reminded of what a mass swim start is like and how the sensations of transition between swim, bike and run feel; and I like to see what happens when I push myself toward a real finish line.

The skies stayed mostly overcast all day, with a hint of rain. I did not hear anyone complaining about this; the weather was warm and humid, and if the sun had made its usual appearance the run would have been an ordeal.

In a sprint for last place between swim laps

The swim course at Peterborough is two loops, where you get out of the water after the first loop and run along the beach a ways to dive back in and go around again. This presumably is a boon to those can’t swim 2000 metres all at once without drowning; plus, if you can do the  hundred yard dash in any kind of time you can pick up a few places in the standings.

Once we splashed en masse into the green, somewhat weedy water, I settled into a relaxed stroke, enjoying the familiar feeling of being a single sock in washing machine. I still struggled with swimming in a straight line as I have always done, but my arms and legs felt strong and I exited the water in about the same time as I had in 2001. Rather than thinking that this means I haven’t improved at all in that time, I choose to believe that age has not withered me too much. I would have been quite happy with any result that was even close to what I could do twelve years ago.

The bulk of the Peterborough bike course follows sparsely travelled country roads in varying states of smoothness. A lot of it is what the race organizers quaintly call “rolling”, meaning there are a lot of hills. No one incline is overly long, or a steep thigh burner— I noted a 9% grade about twice, with the rest between four and six percent—but they combine to reward good climbers and to slow down the unprepared. By the end I felt I had had a good workout without feeling trashed.

For several years the run course was a confusing set of traffic cone-delineated loops around a field that had a distressingly uneven surface. Runners had to pick their way around and through families who were walking through the park for a Sunday picnic. Now most of the run has returned to the road, where it was in the beginning. This makes for a much better experience, although it can be arduous if the sun is shining. On the main part of the course, there is no shade at all and I recall from previous years looking down the long straight road and seeing the black asphalt shimmering in the hazy heat, like the one in that road-tarring scene from Cool Hand Luke. If you ever have the urge to feel like an egg frying on pavement, this is the place.

I trotted slowly and (somewhat) steadily through the half-marathon, predictably tiring and stiffening, but immeasurably cheered by the wonderful volunteers. As I was near the back of the pack, there were not a lot of folks left on the course, and at lonely times like this the encouragement you get at the aid stations is often your only human contact. I hope the volunteers know how important they are to us and to the whole event.

 I finished, feeling tired but without major injury or calamity. A smaller racing field means that my slow finish time is all the more egregious than it would have been in a 70.3; I think all the fast guys in my age group must have shown up that day, because I was nowhere near them.

However, I realized afterward that I had actually knocked a few minutes off my best-ever time for the Half Ironman distance. It’s nice to think that even if I’m not getting much better, at least I’m not getting any worse.

The Peterborough race does not have as generous a time limit as the Ironman 70.3 races; they have a much smaller field, and there is a need to get the roads opened as soon as possible. About an hour after I crossed the line as one of the last few dozen finishers, I was driving out of town on my way home, and saw one straggler making his way in, obviously having a very slow day and way past the cutoff. Police protection on the roads had long since been withdrawn, and he was waiting patiently at a stoplight so that he could jog across the last intersection and finish his race.

I sometimes think that this is what it’s all about; to keep your focus even when everything else is blurring. To complete the course and finish what you start. Kudos.

Water! de l’Eau!

Mont Tremblant Ironman 70.3 - June 23, 2013

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Mohandas Ghandi

The Mont Tremblant Ironman 70.3 and its big brother, the full Ironman, both have a special niche among the North American Ironman races. Located in the Province of Québec, the predominant language and culture of the Tremblant event is French, and this adds a unique atmosphere to the proceedings. Although almost everyone will speak fluent English to a visitor, the signage and background chatter are all in French, a reminder of the distinct identity inherited by the Québeçois on this continent.

On Sunday my daughter Laura and I spent six hours at Run Aid Station #12 (station d’aide #12), at 17 km into the run portion of the Ironman 70.3. There were about two dozen of us volunteers, handing out water, sports drink, pretzels, and other essentials to the 2,000 runners as they ran, walked, or staggered past. It was an inspiration to help every one of them.

Laura in action at the water station.

 

For most of the long day I filled up and gave out cups of water; maybe a thousand cups of water.  We advertised our wares like vendors at an open air market.

“Water!”

“De l’eau!”

"Coke!"

"Cola!"

It was a warm, humid day so I got a lot of business. I also directed the runners for a while.

I always consider it a privilege to help out in the sport that has given so much to me, but we also had one extra motive this time. The two of us are entered in the full Ironman in August - which is two loops of the same course the athletes were doing Sunday - and we wanted to get a feel for the layout of the event. It is a beautiful course; one of the best I have ever seen. We watched the swim, checking out the long walk to the start and the long run out of the water to transition; the day before we had ridden on some of the bike course, where my Garmin clocked a 17% grade on one of the hills, not too long, mercifully; and we walked the hardest part of the run course up to our aid station. I say “up” because the first three kilometres of the run are all uphill. Now we know. Lots of hill training in my future.

Having been in the shoes of those triathletes more times than I can count, I know the criticality of the volunteer crews. The event would not just be more difficult or less enjoyable without them; it would be simply impossible. Whatever the number of athletes in a race, there are usually twice that many volunteers, performing services from bodymarking at dawn to lifeguard duty during the swim to picking up the garbage after everyone has gone home, and everything you can think of between.

Some of the volunteers at our aid station were not athletic types, and might never participate in an event like a triathlon themselves. But there they were, supplying nutrition and hydration, and cheering on the runners with shouts of “Good job!”; "Bravo!";“You’re looking strong!”; “You’re amazing!” They were there because of their true admiration for the athletes and what they were trying to do; and because they wanted to be part of a special event celebrating body and spirit.

There was a purity of attitude that moved me. Not once did I ever hear anyone question why anyone would want to race in a long distance triathlon. Not once did I hear anyone demean or diminish the efforts we were witnessing by using the term “crazy” to describe thousands of runners who streamed past our station. From my fellow volunteers I sensed only admiration and support for the dreaming, planning, training, dedication, focus, and perseverance needed to get to the finish line.

We should all experience such undiluted positive energy at least once in our lives, no matter what we are trying to accomplish.