Why Race.

I’m beginning to think I need to harden up. Step up to the plate.
Stop being so soft with this recovery jigsaw.

I am used to having an incredible will to transcend pain, discomfort, and anything that will prevent me from finishing.

But starting up again after the triathlon season has concluded, is difficult. The taunting fall marathon hangs over my head like a splinter in the bottom of your foot, always there when you press down. This is making me into something I don’t like to be. A procrastinator.

I, am by design, one who works hard to establish myself, and ensure my safety, happiness, and longevity. In every interview, for every position, I have ever applied for, my de facto “weakness” is an “unwavering and faultless determination to finish a task at hand, irreverent of the consequences” So far, its only cost me one job. And that was volunteer work.

I work alone, and I produce alone. And somewhere in between work and production, initiative and product, I succeed. When others suggest options, or ideas, I have an regretful tendency to dismiss them.

There is one exception. Sport.

Before I met all these friends whom I know train with, I was a lone runner.
I never pushed myself. I just ran. But the fact is, I was healthy. Immune from twinges, injuries, and even over-use injuries. I have learned once certainty: Pain is subjective.

So many times I feel like I’m reaching for something, that I have not conceived of. I haven’t wanted it. It was conveyed upon me, through osmosis. Antithetically, I wanted triathlon. I wanted a marathon PR. And I wanted Big Lake. I wanted a PR at Boston, and I’d be damned if I had to run with someone else to get it.

The vast majority of my trouble, is predicated on my allegiance to other's goals, demands, and temptations. Sounds strange coming from an endurance athlete; The ethos of endurance sport is self reliance. But when I start to train with others, I find myself swimming in a proverbial sea of barracudas. I know I don’t belong there, but I figure, we’re both swimming, so we must have something in common.

It’s curious to note, that the flood of injuries I received in the last year, all happened when I joined a team of runners. I cherished every moment of that all too brief season, but I also learned how much of the devil lives in competition. How much vain exists in the struggle against one’s competitors.

I know that more often than not, great things result from threatening challenges. But I also know of all the stupid things I have done in my running 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 find myself either in paramount shape, or just not. Getting to either end, is through a vast matrix of forgotten means - Heart rate, hours of sleep, carbohydrate to protein ratios, and lactic acid. I recall fondly producing, and enduring, but then I sit down one night and realize my resting heart rate, and saying “You don’t say”

Increased stroke volume, reduced resting heart rate, clarity of mind, and heightened sensory awareness, are simply byproducts of what I do. I don’t run to achieve these things. They merely are ancillary benefits, of a hobby.

So now I’m wondering what getting back into condition will feel like. Whether I heed the suggestions, en masse, by my fellows.

At this juncture, I know that if I run well, and sustain a good state of health, few things will interrupt my perennial contentment.

Running Saturday.