Stupid is as stupid does….

Patrick Dowd (owner of All3Sports) once observed and stated, years ago, “Carole is like Jan Ullrich – she races herself into shape”. I thought it was an astute observation on his part, and an accurate one.

Each year my season has been depicted by this consistency: as the months go by and as I race more and more, my relative fitness increases. Substantially. The last races of my season are always the strongest. Not too hard to comprehend but I’ve often marveled at athletes who race strongly all year. This has never been me.

True to form, I decided to jump into the Macon half (on May 31) right before I left for Boulder. I knew I hadn’t been training, I knew I wouldn’t have too much of a respectable day… but I felt I needed to rip the proverbial band-aid off to start making something happen with my training, my fitness, my body… etc. I also wanted to support my friend, Jim Rainey, who’s been the RD for this event for years.

I know that more often than not, great things result from threatening challenges. But I also know all the stupid things I have done in my tri career. Oscar Wilde once wrote that when man does a stupid thing, it is usually “for the nobles of reasons”. Only truth can be this clear.

I had no nerves or anything at the start, but that wasn’t too concerning – worse, however, was that I had absolutely no fire. When the gun went off I just about walked into the water with no sense of urgency. I watched my good friend, Dan Moss, put a massive gap on me in the swim, and I only laughed as I was unable to catch him. Dan is an awesome cyclist and runner – but he sucks as a swimmer. : ) If he was dusting me… man, this was already bad. : ) Even he would agree to that.

I think I came out of the water 3 min behind the lead swim pack. Actually, that’s probably better than I should have done. As I mounted the bike and rode along the hilly 56-mile course of Macon, Georgia – my pace was sluggish. I normally fly over rollers. Today I labored up hills and slight inclines that did not look too tough.
Since I was clearly not moving with any superior speed, I did the one thing I have never done in a race – I talked to people. : ) I talked with everyone; anyone who went by me or hung near me, I would say hello, encourage them, I even struck up conversations with some. There was no haste to my effort, often I stood out of the saddle to stretch my growing back discomfort… and by mile 40 I knew my goose was cooked. The back was not good and I pedaled with great anticipation for mile 56 to arrive so I could be done.

As I coasted slowly into T2, Dave Phillips was right there, having just completed his aquathon. He saw how I was hurting as I put on my run shoes and told me not to be stupid, to pull out if I needed to. I was moving at slug pace. Mile 1 was 8:19. Mile 2 was 9:26. I made it to mile 6, but then decided to call it a day. This was doing nothing for my fitness, and was likely doing damage – at least to my psyche if not my body.

I do not like to DNF races. This was my career 3rd DNF and I hate that. I like to finish what I start, even if I am walking or crawling. It shows respect to the day, the sport, and my fellow participants. Just because I am not winning or doing well doesn’t mean my struggle has no merit. I am used to having an incredible will to transcend pain, discomfort, and anything that will prevent me from finishing. However, on this day, it just seemed ridiculous to keep going.

I was relatively fine after the race (mentally). I knew the deal going in, and I’m not really sure what I was trying to accomplish. Would Deena Kastor run a marathon with 30 miles of training run volume in her legs, with no long runs and no fitness – just to “get going” again? Ummm, no. Funny how these things make sense when they’re not you.

Physically the pain was no worse than it always has been when I have attempted a bike ride… on this day I was just stupid enough to try to run a half marathon off the bike, untrained.

Towards the end of the bike I had made some decisions:
I never, ever want to go into a race again injured, out of shape, or anything close. The race was unsatisfying for me. In past races when I wasn’t as fit as I could have been (racing myself into shape), there was purpose in the struggle, the drive beneath the fight… and I always had at least some fitness going into it. That’s a key point. On this day I had absolutely no aerobic capacity. I’m not saying I should have, I’m simply saying I saw the reality of how bad this is. Other than my back, nothing hurt all day – I was just tired. Racing myself into shape requires some benchmark level of fitness going in. I had nothing. I’ll never do that again.

I also acknowledge I got careless over the last 9 months. I’d gained sixteen pounds since October, and I can tell. On a macro level, my inattentiveness has hurt me. Fitness aside, I was 20:00 behind where I should have been off the bike simply from the weight gain.

All of this would be so much easier if I just didn’t give a shit. But I do.

The next time I write I’ll be in Boulder. I am so excited to shake my life up a bit, and see what’s behind door number two.

Cheers.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2008 at 3:37 AM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.