Thoughts on Ruminating

I've had more feedback on my last post than any other - except perhaps "If you don't have a dream." As my brother G says, "When you get existential, I get interested." That is probably part of it, and another part is that I published the post as a FB note, and got a lot of comments there as well. Being nothing if not a slut for attention (Hi Landru!) I thought I'd go ahead and work on being less purely statistic oriented for the winter.

Today I did my long run - 14 miles, 1:54:00 (that didn't last long). No, no, don't stop reading! I have a point -- and it is that while I felt a lot worse about my run today (see below) I didn't have to fight the negativity that had been plaguing me nearly as much as the week before, when I felt pretty good about the run. Something about sharing the presence of the negative thoughts kept them from being quite so powerful today. So, that was good. Especially since I was overdressed -- there is a world of difference between 43 degrees (what it was when I left the house) and 61 and sunny, which was the temp when I finished. 14 miles is short enough that I don't carry water or gels, so the sweating I was doing was dehydrating me pretty badly. Thankfully MoCo has water fountains every couple of miles on the trail.

The best part of the run was that J rode his bike with me for the first five miles. We have done this in the past, and I really like having him there with me, tooling along, sometimes a little behind, sometimes right next to me. We don't talk too much -- but he did ask me a question that has come up with other folks before. "Dad, why are you doing this whole triathlon thing anyway?"

Good question, J. I've talked about it before, and my reasons haven't changed that much. Its harder to explain to a nine year old who hasn't really had many choices to make yet how important the choices you DO make are, over the long haul. Trying to get to Kona is a kind of new dream for me, something to chart the hours when I am not working on the writing or trying to land a job, or do the job I have. I spent a lot of years doing not much productive, and I've decided that the exercising is both good for me and my family, even if it does take time away during the hard season.

Which brings me to the next little choice -- do I try to do an IM distance race in 2010? I had decided, No. I will be moving, starting a new job, writing a manuscript for a book, probably teaching new classes, this year. That seems to me like quite a bit to do while trying to work in 7 hour bike rides. So, I made the plan for my "A" race to be Eagleman, a 1/2 IM race at the end of June. But here's the catch -- Coach worries that, without the fact of an IM to aim for, I won't be doing the amount or intensity of work I need to do in the second half of the summer/early fall to build for next year. That has been bouncing around in my mind, and I think I have to accept that I'm just not going to have the time to do an IM in the second half of the year.

So, Instead, I think I will work for a second marathon, say, in October or early November. My run -- off the bike -- needs to be about 3:30:00 - 20 minutes faster than I ran my fresh marathon last spring, and 51 minutes faster than I ran at IM Wisconsin. Conventional wisdom states that I should, therefore, be aiming to run 3:15:00 fresh in order to be anywhere near 3:30:00 off the bike. A second running phase this year would go a long way towards that. If I can go 3:30:00 this spring, and 3:25:00 this fall, then I think that will be time well spent.

See, its about choices. Do I spend the $$ on a new bike, or keep riding the bike that doesn't quite fit me for the first race? (A: Ride the beater for the first year, then, if you're for real about it, get a better one.) Do I travel to play in the North American Diplomacy Championships in April, or go with the UMD tri club to Collegiate Nationals? (A: AAAAAHH! TOUGH CALL!) Do I take the family to Europe for World Dip Con in the summer, even though we really can't afford it? The last time I answered YES to that kind of question, it took five years to pay off the debt. I could work in a 1/2 IM in Germany . . . that would be fun . . .

Choices -- lots of little ones I make every day. That's one of the things I am trying to teach J. They matter. Sit and write for the afternoon or sit on the couch and watch movies? Play a game with the family or play a game on the internet by myself? Do another job application, or do more research for the last chapter of the Diss? Get up at 5 am to swim, or sleep until 6:30 and miss the workout? J doesn't have to make those kinds of choices, but he's getting to the point where he is going to need to start making some decisions that will affect his long term prospects. I sometimes think the cruelest thing anyone ever said to me (and I heard this a LOT) was "Wow, you have a lot of potential." That hurts especially because it isn't meant to be mean -- its meant to be encouraging -- but I didn't really make the right choices when I was younger to fulfill my potential.

All of which is to say, that I am glad that I decided to take up Triathlon, and I hope I can keep making the choice to get out of the house and do the work. 'Cause I would hate to have had the potential to get to Kona, but failed because I didn't try.