Me, Undefined

We are a people starved for self-definition.
Ken Burns, documentary filmmaker

People talk a lot about defining themselves, how they are defined, what defines them. They tell us when they are in the process of redefining their lives (or reinventing themselves, a curious notion if ever there was one, as if we were light bulbs or mousetraps). A friend once lamented to me that a lot of her friends seemed to be redefining their lives and she wanted to as well but was having trouble thinking of a new definition. She wondered if I could help with some suggestions.

Without going to my dictionary, I am guessing that the word ‘define’ derives from the Latin meaning the ‘end’ or ‘limit’, as in ‘finite’. So by defining themselves, people are actually listing what their limits are.

It seems an odd thing to do, to draw an invisible boundary around yourself, like a Marcel Marceau cell, so that you or others will know what your limits are. A woman I know told me once: “I can’t ever imagine doing what you do”. I wanted to reply archly: “That is why you never will do what I do. It begins with imagination”. An answer like that would of course have been trite, self-serving, smug and unfriendly so I said nothing. But I thought it. (I reserve the right to be internally trite and self-serving).

I have another friend who, whenever she hears of an activity or undertaking that is new to her has a habit of saying “Oh yes, I could do that.” In fact she could never do a fraction of those things, but I have always admired the way she doesn’t set a limit on herself automatically.

Why can’t we discover our boundaries by testing them rather than defining them?

In the past year I have had some colossal athletic failures. I travelled all the way to South Africa to run in the Comrades Marathon and had to drop out after 55 kilometres. This year I failed to bicycle the entire distance of the Race Across the West, running out of energy and spirit after at the 540 kilometre mark. Then last month I launched myself over my handlebars during a routine training ride and managed to snap my clavicle in two, unequivocally ending my 2010 Ironman hopes and my whole season.

If my athletic self-definition were constructed of what I have been able to accomplish recently, my boundaries would be moving inward on me at an alarming rate, like Marceau’s walls. And if I placed limits on my own potential, I would never have attempted those races in the first place; would never have gotten on my bike; might, in fact never have left the house. Yet even sitting here with my clavicle fractured and useless in a sling and with two egregious DNFs behind me, I am still imagining Everests yet to be climbed, oceans yet to be swum, roads yet to be cycled and trails yet to be run. Challenges as yet undefined.

I think that if I were forced to, I would choose to define myself by the things I can’t yet accomplish. Western States 100? Badwater Ultramarathon? Race Across America? Oh yes, I could do that.

The Head Bone’s (Still) Connected to the Collar Bone

They’re funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you’re having them.
Eeyore

I was thinking earlier this week how much I was looking forward to Ironman Canada. My favourite event ever: great swim, spectacular bike ride, relatively easy run and lots of enthusiastic spectators. And I was ready for it. With my biking in the best shape it has ever been and my running and swimming finally coming back after a long sabbatical I was all set to enjoy the race from beginning to end. Besides, after DNFs in my last two major races I could use a success; I could use a break, I remember thinking.

Be careful what you wish for, goes the saying.

This past weekend with the race three weeks out, I decided I might benefit from one last century ride, and I decided to do it on the Muskoka 70.3 course near Huntsville. It is terrain I know very well having driven on the highways all my life ( we have a cottage close by) and having done the Muskoka Chase many times. I parked my car at Robinson’s General Store In Dorset, about half way around the 78 km loop part of the course, intending to do the loop twice.

I was having my best ride in months. Sparkling cool, calm morning air, smooth road and a responsive bicycle. There are times when there is nowhere else I would rather be. Coming down a hill at a decent speed on South Portage Road, something – a pothole, rock, gremlin - grabbed the aerobars out of my hands. In a split second my bike shot into the soft sand at the side of the road, bucked wildly like an unbroken stallion and threw me over the handlebars onto the pavement. I hit with my chest, head and finally my knees, which acted as brakes, dragging along the road behind me until I skidded to a stop. I didn’t lose consciousness but was pretty frazzled.

My left shoulder had taken the brunt of my unscheduled aterrissage; the same shoulder that I injured in another fall two years ago. Now it throbbed and burned, sending streamers of pain through the rest of my body. Like most cyclists, naturally my first thought was for my bike: to get it off the road, where it lay impotently waiting to be run over by the next pickup truck that happened over the brow of the hill. If you had been watching from the sidelines you would have seen me staggering around like a drunken sailor kicking water bottles into the ditch and frantically dragging the frame of my P2 out of harm’s way, all the time voicing imprecations of outrage and pain.


As luck would have it, I was cartographically about as far away from my parked car as could be, and I had to pedal nearly 35 km to get back to it. The ride back was not the most fun I’ve ever had but was ultimately bearable. At Robinson’s I bought some ibuprofen. Walking across the parking lot to my car with road-burned legs and a deformed shoulder, clutching my box of Advil I must have looked pretty awful. Several people asked me if I was all right, and one very kind lady reached into her car and gave me a bottle of naturopathic pills to take with me. I was able to drive to Huntsville Memorial Hospital using all of my one good arm and the thumb from my bad one.

While I was waiting in Emergency the pain was present and insistent, but somehow not as bad as it had been two years ago with my separated shoulder. I fully expected that the doctor would smilingly tell me to take anti-inflammatories, ice the injury and it would all be OK in a few weeks. I began to feel badly for taking the time of the emergency room staff with my minor trauma. It came as a shock therefore when they informed me that my left clavicle was broken, (although after looking at the X-ray I agree with the diagnosis;  the two halves of my collarbone look like they are in different time zones). If I had been entertaining any hopeful thoughts of still being able race in Ironman, this was the end.

They gave me the CD with my X-ray on it, and I had to tell them what I was going to do with it, who I was going to show it to. What did they think I was going to do? Post it on my Blog?

So, for me the season is over: an enforced rest from swimming, biking, running and anything else athletic. Ironman is off the calendar for this year. I expect we will travel to Penticton anyway as the plane tickets and accommodations are all arranged. I can make it a vacation, cheer for the triathletes and take some time to consider the future.

As a postscript there is one point I want to make. I have always worn a helmet when I ride a bike – I wouldn’t feel dressed without it - and the tumble this weekend pointed up the value. There is a dent in the left side of my helmet where my head hit the pavement; this dent would have been in my skull if not for the helmet’s protection. As it is, my head doesn’t even have a mark on it – at least not one that wasn’t there before.

Anyone who rides a bicycle without a helmet does not deserve to own a head.

Ease on Down the Road

Exercise: a series of strenuous activities which help convert fats, sugars, and starches into aches, pains, and cramps.
Anonymous

Just in from a terrific run: an hour and a half, bathed in the liquid summer heat. This is the longest I have run in over a year and I am stiff. But it was a relief for once not to have something snap crackle or pop in some part of my musculo-skeletal structure. Stiffness: yes, pain: no. After the beating-up my body and mind took last month in Arizona we are starting to wake up to the fact that we are not dead yet. The road stretches before us.

I am easing my way into Ironman this summer, trying to combine some sort of focused training plan with a reasonable demand on my body. Ridiculous, of course. Ironman requires a lot of time in the water and on the road, and there is no way to train properly for it without doing that time. You can’t “ease into it”. Do, or do not, as the annoying little Muppet said

Yet after 25 years of marathons, triathlons and dreams possible and impossible, I have learned there is a benefit to some sensibility when it comes to what we ask of our bodies. In the best of worlds, our older physical selves should be the beneficiaries of the accumulated experience and lore our minds acquired while we were getting older. Therefore my training this summer will not involve me trying to emulate some twenty-year-old steroidal Olympian in a Gatorade commercial. I will strive for modest gain with minimal pain. Lots of miles, yes. Lots of easy miles.

We athletes are a contradiction sometimes. Of all people we should be the most in touch with our bodies and the constant stream of physical feedback they provide, yet we seem to be capable of selectively tuning out what they are trying to tell us if it doesn’t elide with our plans.

Many years ago while out running I noticed a tight soreness just in front of my right heel. Since the pain it seemed to go away after I was warmed up, I ignored it and continued running for several months. (By now, any experienced runner will recognize the unmistakable signs of plantar fasciitis). One day I came back from a 20k run and my foot gave up on me. For several months I could barely walk, let alone run. It was what we call a season-ending injury and I was finally forced into treating it properly. With that proper treatment, it went away and never came back.

The point here is that we can push our bodies to accomplish amazing things, but they are not to be considered slaves to the demands of our dreams. Our hearts and minds need to treat the body as an equal partner, not as a mindless Morlock, toiling away unseen in the dark for our higher pleasure and fulfillment.

So I am going gently into my training this summer, and if I hurt, I am going to slow down.