Visit from the SLC boys

Visit from the SLC boys

It has been a quiet few weeks here in Napalmland. I have been steadily logging laps in the pool, miles in the saddle and on foot, and hours at the gym as my schedule permits, and not admitting to my coach the days when time does not permit. The weeks seem a lot longer during a stretch where you don't have any races scheduled; though for me it's not difficult to stay motivated, it is difficult to monitor your progress from week to week. At least, it is for me, since I haven't been training with a partner, or keeping a log. I imagine that, if I were to communicate a lesson during this post, that would be it: if you're training by yourself, or even if you're not, it's great to keep a log to watch your times go down and your weights go up (the ones that you're lifting).

I did have a bit of insight into my swim times during my last session with my coach. In the SHAC spring triathlon that I did back in March, my splits on the swim were 2:21/100m. At the time, I wasn't really pleased or displeased - I was just happy to have finished - but I used it as a measuring stick for future training. Ten days ago, my coach timed me as I swam 4x100m at a 6-7 pace, that is to say, just under my race pace. Wearing swim shorts rather than my racing suit, I swam 2:16 splits, and had plenty of breath left at the end. I commented to my coach that it's astonishing to find your workout pace drop below your last race pace. Feels great. It's not really even near the sub-2:00 splits that I saw people swimming during the Ironman St George, but I feel like I'm now at least on the path that might get me there.

But now on to the real report: Saturday, my good friends from Salt Lake City came down and joined me on a ride around the town.

Mileage: 45
Time: 3 hours
Average speed: 15 mph

At the beginning of the year, we were planning on riding a full century, from my house to Zion Natl. Park and back, but due to bad weather, injury and illness, they weren't really able to put in the miles to train for it. Curse you, Salt Lake spring weather!!

Anyway, we mapped out a nice 30-mile ride out to Sand Hollow Reservoir and back. The photo above is of us three together - as we were getting ready to go, we realized that all of us had picked our bright yellow jerseys to wear that day. Go team lemon! The ride we picked is pleasant to do and offers some good, challenging hills right off the bat. The steepest of these, in my opinion, is just 5 or 6 miles from my house - a long, windy, 5-6 minute slog up and out of Washington City and toward the land fill. Not an insane challenge, but enough of a workout that if you still are feeling the winter cobwebs in your legs, this will definitely serve to wake you up. All three of us spent a couple of minutes huffing at the top of the hill, and there were even some rumors of breakfast coming back for a visit. After that, there are some rolling hills that take you up to the SR-9, the main road that takes you into Hurricane and eventually toward Zion. We zipped down this and into the Sand Hollow recreation area, where we stopped for a few minutes to watch the St George Triathlon in progress. It was fun to watch the runners go by - I felt a few butterflies in my stomach watching these very fit people out there struggling with what looks to be a challenging course, knowing that this would be the same course that I'll be running in the fall.

We then climbed back up out of that valley to a Chevron, stopped for a quick pee and a Snickers, and then zipped on back to St George. I actually coaxed the boys into doing a few extra miles and coming with me to Bloomington Park, which on the one hand was great, as the majority of the ride is along paved bike trails, but on the other hand meant that our wives were stuck waiting for us at my house for an extra hour. Chagrin!

The post-ride afternoon consisted of a soak in my in-laws' jacuzzi, followed by burgers and a movie at my house, followed by some ice cream and sleeping, followed by more eating.



Thank you, gents, for coming down and riding with me. Let's do it again soon.

End Transmission.

Check out my cool Ironman ink:



This was a test that the body marking team did to see if the ink was working properly. After two showers and a trip to the pool, I can tell you: it is.

End Transmission.

Shifting Paradigms, or, an Endomorph's Lament

Shifting Paradigms, or, an Endomorph's Lament

To those of you that know me, it's no secret that I have struggled with body fat for most of my life. I have memories of being very, very little having to look around my belly to get a glance at my toes. When I'm naked and I lie down either supine or on my stomach, the outline of my body is similar to that of a short-legged toad that's been splayed out on the dissector's table. And yes, it's bothered me most of the time.

It's also no big secret that one big draw to endurance sports for me is a lifestyle that promotes weight loss, specifically body fat loss. For some reason, simply going on a diet to "get thin" only gets me so far - what has consistently brought me to my lowest numbers on the scale is the idea of an upcoming public display and the chance to spend a Saturday morning in pursuit of a shiny finisher's medal.

Since I started training for the season at the beginning of this year, I've reaped the benefit of so many hours at the gym and outside - I've been able to shed about 15 lbs. It feels good, yes, and it motivates me to continue, but I also find myself in a peculiar and troubling position. Every morning when I step on the scale, I still look down and see a healthy serving of pudge blocking the view of my toes. After that moment every day, I find myself peeking into mirrors and other reflective surfaces around the house to check out my profile and see if my Hitchcock's Curse is visible to the rest of the world under my shirt. Depending on the time of day, whether or not I have done my workout or not, how many meals I have eaten, etc, etc, I fluctuate between being mildly pleased, happy to the point of being smug, and downright disgusted. Even though I'm pretty sure that my figure can't change all that much during the course of a single day. But, in my heart of hearts, I know that, barring a lengthy famine, no matter how hard I work, I will probably always carry around a little spare tire. Hello, my name is Peter the Napalmbrain, and I am an endomorph.

But a reason to get fit is not the only thing that draws me to train for races. I find great personal satisfaction in going out there and challenging myself to see how fast and how far I can go entirely under my own power. It becomes a great form of meditation to learn to align your mind and body, to find a rhythm in the pedals or in the sound of your footfalls and let that rhythm take over in your mind until it shuts out all distractions and you find yourself just moving forward, almost automatically, over any and all obstacles. If you've trained well enough, the idea of a 'finish line' diminishes until it almost disappears, and then you're just out there, enjoying the gift of your body with a group of other people.

Oh yeah, and passing those other people feels pretty good, too.

I've kept pretty good track of my progress since the beginning of this year: I've now clocked a 5K at a faster pace than I've ever run, and did that off the bike in a triathlon; I've logged more hours on a bike since last summer than probably in the rest of my cumulative years; I can comfortably swim a mile; so why do I wail so over being able to grab a bit of skin around my midsection? I'm as fit as I've been probably since high school, or maybe ever. Get over it, Pete... right?

Yesterday I had the chance to log some volunteer hours at the St George Ironman, as part of the body marking team, painting bib numbers on people's arms and their ages on their legs. It was a parade of chiseled perfection, to sum it up. Both men and women, I painted arm after sculpted arm, leg after shapely leg (but just with the paint roller, dear). Each athlete who came through was a living testament to the years of training and sacrifice that they had gone through in order to reach the level of badassitude that they will be displaying on Saturday.

Did I feel envy or inadequacy? Yeah. Come on, get real. But as I progress down the path of fitness that I've chosen to follow, I've come to realize that the good feelings that come to me through exercise and racing are not a result of my ability/inability to hang with such Adonises (Adoni? Charlie Sheens?) on race day; rather they are the natural consequence of putting in the effort and sacrifice necessary to reach a goal. I remember now the lesson that I wanted to drill into all of my cello students' heads - playing music, or in this case racing, is most satisfying when we know that we've put in the practice and work necessary to do our best. It's not about the instrument we play or the other people that we play around; it's about striving to do our best. And once that's done, playing (or racing) becomes truly a joy, anywhere we are.

I want to finish the Kokopelli triathlon in the fall with a big smile on my face. If I put in the hours before then, it's certainly within my grasp to do so, and when I cross the finish line, I won't be looking down to see if I can see my toes over my belly.

End transmission.