Tracking along...

I've never understood why athletes go to see a sport psychologist, until now.

I was speaking to Al Nolan today, he's a friend and someone who follows my blog. Al said, "it looks like your back on track. I envision you going to Utah, relaxed, enjoying beers the night before, and then having the race of your life". I got a similar comment a few weeks back from Jevon.

I seems others are more confident in my abilities than I am. Even though I quit Ironman China for the right reasons, it's still grinding on my psyche. I'm questioning my abilities and my heart.

I told Al, "I'm not even thinking of a personal best race, I'm just focused on finishing strong". I was reading a tweet from Johan, who is a top age-grouper and Kona qualifier, he's been training for Ironman South Africa which is only a few weeks away. His tweet was "now getting to the stage where I start to doubt things. Was this enough, do I still need to do that". The spirit of Johan's tweet duplicated how I feel, which is, "even with all the training I've done, am I going to be ready?".

I train hard for one reason, "I don't want to be in extreme pain and I want to start and finish strong.

China taught me I'm not invincible. What bothers me the most is I know I did the right thing dropping out, but I didn't "pain" over the decision. I wasn't in tears and breaking down. I just looked at the situation objectively and didn't think it was wise to finish. By making that decision so "matter of factually" I question if I lost my heart?

I'm not down or depressed or lost confidence in any other areas of my life. The issue is not physical, it's mental. I can be in the greatest physical shape, but if I don't have my "head screwed on properly" I'll psyche myself out before I even start the race.

I used to always think sports psychology was a waste of time, but that was before I became a focused athlete and recently had a traumatic race experience.

I've got a love-hate relationship with my current situation. I hate the fact that, "I've been shaken to my core and am now questioning myself and my abilities", yet I love the fact that, "I'm in uncharted emotional territory and I'm faced with the challenge of figuring out how to get my mojo back".

If I, (er...rather, when I) figure this out, I'm know I'm going to grow as a person because of it. I also know, I don't know how long it will take. It could be quick or it could be a long time. As I'm training my body right now, I'm also trying to train my mind. I'm internally examining all my thoughts and fears and trying to get back to my past "invincible" state.

Explaining my situation in one sentence; I didn't know what I had, until I lost it and now I'm working to get it back.

The Ironman is not a race to be taken lightly, no matter how well you trained. Anything can happen. I think it's easier to finish an Ironman if it's your first. Your "scared" and without even knowing it, you mentally prepare yourself to finish. You anticipate the "worst" and when the going gets tough, you think of all the people who know your doing the race, and push yourself to finish because you don't want to deal with the "shame" of having to tell them you didn't finish.

When you've done a few Ironman and train at an elite level, you come to race. You don't even think of not finishing. I wasn't mentally prepared for the worst. And when the worst happened, I wasn't prepared to deal with it.

I had to do all my "adjustments" during the race. After the race, because decisions were made on the fly, it creates a lot of "doubt". If I mentally prepared for such a circumstance, I don't know if I'd still have this "doubt aftertaste".

My goal right now is to get my Ironman distance "killer instinct" back. I want to be at that start line ready to "eat up" the course. Right now, I'm fearfully thinking, "I hope the course doesn't eat me up". In the next 29 days, I need to change my thought process. This is not my Journey to Kona race, it's the Journey to clean out what's "between my ears".

My legs are still sore, but getting better. It was my fourth day of dreading my leg pain. I had to do weights and running speed work. I used the "robot motivation" technique, which is don't think about it, just "show up and do it".

The weights actually helped by stretching the muscles. I didn't "wuss" out on the weight load either, I made it tough. I don't want to do any junk training. I'm not going through the motions, if I do it, it's gonna count!

I had speed work and debated between running on hills or the track. Track won; no heavy traffic and I can focus solely on going "fast". My warm up hurt, I was shuffling at a 5:45 pace for 10 minutes. I did loosen up and went hard on the intervals. Near the end, my quads were full of lactic acid and burning. It was a tough session, 14 km's of track work.

My fastest one minute interval was 3:45 and for 1 x 12 minutes and 1 x 9 minutes I maintained a 3:59 pace / 6:26 per mile. Again, my heart rate was through the roof. It hit a high of 175 bpm, it hasn't been that high in 3 years. It's obvious my body is stressed and I need to get my fat burning system working more efficiently.

Lastly, I was laughing at the comments I got about the beer counts. Everyone thought it was the first time I've done it. Wrong. I've always had my beer totals on the blog. I just normally don't add beers before the number. If you look back you'll see a number under the month totals, it's my beer count. Or if you see a number under my daily training totals, it's my daily beer count. The secrets now out.

Frankly, I was surprised I had 74 beers in only 17 days. It didn't seem like I had that much. I was very well behaved. I only had one hangover and that was in China, which was expected and a goal. Day's after my hangover, John laughed at me and said I "stunk" like beer the morning we were leaving China. It all makes sense now, I was wondering why no one talked to me very long while I was standing in the line at the airport.

Weights - 30 minutes

Speed Run - 1:06:58 /14.06 / 4:45 / avg hr 152 / max hr 175

179.2 lbs / 21.9% BMI

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