Michelle Barker's Blog: Hearing Voices, page 6

Writer in Training: Two Steps Forward, Ten Steps Back

Determination, endurance, mental and physical toughness? Yes. That’s the race I signed up for, and that is what I have trained for.

Patience? Acceptance? Maturity? OMFG, no. Get me out of here.

About ten days ago, I put out my back. Same old S.I. joint acting up, nothing new there. Except the clock is ticking, and I already had to take nearly a week off training because of a nasty chest cold that threatened to turn into something more serious.

I suppose the good news is that my lungs are fine now. And hey, swimming is going well BECAUSE IT’S THE ONLY SPORT I CAN DO WITHOUT PAIN. The trouble is, there are two other sports that need attention and I am running out of time.

Last week I took a three-hour walk, with very short bits of jogging thrown in, just to cover some distance. A three-hour run would have been glorious. Three hours of walking? Not so great. And tomorrow I get to do it again, only longer. That’s where the patience comes in.

I have had to forego riding completely. I tested it out on Monday and quickly knew it wasn’t going well. It’s only lucky that I put so much time into bike training before this happened.

If I make it to the start line, this race is going to be rough. It is not the training I wanted, and I’m fairly sure I won’t have the results I wanted either. That’s where acceptance comes in. And humility, did I mention that one? Oh yeah, Ironman’s a blast.

I’m not doing too great in the maturity department, but anyone who knows me won’t be surprised by that.

In a strange coincidence, I stopped in at the library to pick up a book that I’d put on hold that had finally come in. It’s called The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday (who also has a great blog). He says a lot of interesting things in this book.

Like this: “We decide what we will make of each and every situation. We decide whether we’ll break or whether we’ll resist . . . . No one can force us to give up.”

My daughter reassures me that I can still safely take one more week off riding without any damage. She has also threatened physical violence if I don’t race with her. My physiotherapist, who is usually booked up for months, has squeezed me in for weekly visits to make sure I get healthy on time. I’m on a daily regimen of core and glute strength, and I basically walk everywhere and sit as little as possible.

I’m doing everything I can to get to that start line. I only hope it will be enough.

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Happy training!

Writer in Training: Whack-a-Mole

I’m into the whack-a-mole stage of training now: as soon as one issue is resolved, a new one pops up to take its place. I finally seem to have my Achilles tendon under control, when I come down with a terrible chest cold that throws my training totally off track. I worry and fret, and then realize that worrying and fretting are not going to help and that I simply must take time off and not push myself too hard. So I take time off. Then I push myself too hard, worry and fret some more—and finally realize I’m fine.

And then I hurt my back.

It might be funny if we weren’t five weeks away from race day. I’m not sensing the humour in this at all, to be honest. I’m excited about the race and feel like I could be ready for it—if these setbacks didn’t keep coming one after the next.

Training seems to be a lot like writing. You look around and think everyone else knows what they’re doing and can pump out a perfect first draft while you’re the only one who has to revise and rewrite and rethink—and then you get to know other writers and discover they go through the exact same process as you.

I thought I was the only one having setback after setback in my training—until I started asking around. Turns out, everyone goes through this process—whether it’s because of a lack of time to train, or sickness, or injury, or who knows what else. This isn’t what happens instead of training. This IS the training. I keep waiting for the time when everything will run smoothly, but that time is not going to come—or if it does, it won’t last for long.

This realization has been a comfort. I’ve had to lower my expectations (again) and accept the circumstances as they are, but I’ve come to understand that just getting to the start line is an achievement, never mind the finish line. We’re all limping by this point; we’re all saying, “It is what it is.”

And despite that, slowly, slowly, things are coming together. I’ve now swam farther than I ever have before, the run times are increasing, and if my body decides to cooperate I will get to Whistler next weekend to ride the course.

We shall see.

Writer in Training: Are You Okay?

 

Have I mentioned deep tissue massage as the ultimate cure for all aches and pains?

Unfortunately, there’s a catch. Deep tissue massage is not relaxing, and it’s not fun. A small, amazing Thai woman named Kala literally stands on my back, or sometimes on my glutes, or on my hamstrings. She finds the most painful spots on my body and digs her fingers or her heels into them until I’m almost crying.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

“I suppose,” I say.

“Are you still alive?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Then you’re okay.”

And she keeps going.

It’s a good place to set the bar for okay, and I’m sure I will remember it when I’m dragging myself along a 42km run, tempted to quit. Am I still alive? Yup. Well then, I’m okay. Keep going.

Kala jokes that she beats me up. It’s not really a joke. After one session I had a row of bruises along my bicep that had people giving me strange looks every time I went to the pool. But whatever she does, it works. I come out of there feeling like I have a new body. It’s a reset button—until I wreck my body all over again and have to go back.

Speaking of wrecking my body . . . I hit 150km this past weekend on the bike: a milestone. And the best thing about it (besides the ride itself, which was absolutely wonderful): I could have kept going. Although at about 140km, I had a thought: on race day, I’m going to have to run a marathon after this. And I started laughing, because really, what else can you do?

The runs are getting longer, although they’re much slower than I would like. But I’m finally allowing my legs to dictate the pace, rather than my head. It turns out if I go slow enough, I can basically run forever without things breaking down. Well, ‘run’ is perhaps the wrong way to describe it. I’m still alternating running with walking, and I’m not in love with that, but I also know this is how I’m going to get through the marathon so I’ve made my peace with it.

As for the swim, I love to complain, but it’s stupid because . . . Kits pool. Sasamat. Those are the places I get to swim, and they couldn’t be nicer. Although I do have one thing to say about swimming: how can such a basic activity be so damn complicated? All I’m doing is moving my body through the water, but: what is my elbow doing? Where is my hip? Am I rotating enough? How is my hand entering the water? Where is it entering the water? What’s it doing once it’s in the water? What about the other arm? What about my head? What’s happening with the kick?

See?

I’ve been swimming for years and I’m still not doing it right.

These are the last four weeks of hard training before the taper begins. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. I see early bedtimes in my future, but also chocolate bars, Coke and pizza—the diet of champions :-).

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Happy training!

Writer in Training: Progress Report #3

 

We’re eight weeks out now. I’ve got blisters where there should not be blisters. Anyone who’s done a lot of long rides will know exactly what I mean. If you don’t know what I mean, trust me: you don’t want to know.

A friend passed along a magazine article pointing out that Whistler is one of four races in the world that is actually harder than Kona. I mean, thanks—I think.

Last Saturday I rode to Squamish and back, something I never thought I’d be able to do. I also discovered the wonders of a Snickers bar about five hours in. Oh my. Why didn’t anyone tell me about this? Also, we rode out to Richmond, which people did tell me about, repeatedly—and I didn’t believe them about how beautiful it was (see above photo).

I’ve cracked the 10km barrier on the run, finally, and so far, my Achilles tendon is hanging in there. Forgot, and was cruelly reminded, of the importance of bringing both food and water on a longer run. And—I’m back in the open water, which I so prefer to pool swimming. It has made me like swimming again.

This past weekend a number of people I know did a Half-Ironman for the first time ever. Some of them weren’t completely sure they could do it—but they did, and brilliantly. This is what I love about this sport: it crushes limitations. We don’t know what we’re capable of until we stop telling ourselves we can’t do something and instead train to get it done. I never in a million years thought I’d be able to ride 145km. I am now convinced I can do 180—although proof of that is coming in a few weeks when I return to Whistler to ride the full course.

Also, and I never thought I’d say this, I’m enjoying the long rides as much as I love running. Spending over six hours on a bike might sound like a weird form of torture, but it’s actually quite wonderful. It’s the workout I look most forward to now in my week.

In all three sports, when you go long there is this strange combination that happens of both presence and disappearance. You are 100% involved in what you’re doing, but you’re also . . . not there. It’s highly addictive. This must be what meditation is supposed to achieve, though all it ever produced for me was frustration. I much prefer a long ride.

As for the race, I’m starting to think about details: what should go into my special needs bag; should I change between the bike and the run, or even between the swim and the bike? I’m already so slow in transition, and yet the change might provide some relief to the inevitable chafing. Anyone with advice, please don’t hold back.

Terror is now tinged with excitement. This thing is happening soon.

Happy training, and as always, if you like what you’re reading, please share the post and consider following the blog.

Writer in Training: Our Weekend Away

 

Surprisingly, I don’t have any disasters to report about this past weekend up at Whistler. Everything went rather smoothly. The weather was perfect for both cycling and running (we saved our lake swim for Monday, in Sasamat. Even in the rain, it was relatively warm, and no doubt warmer than anything up at Whistler would have been).

Our long ride began early Saturday morning. It was a good thing we came prepared for a chilly morning, because it was about four degrees when we set out. We did one full loop of the course, which was beautiful and not as bad as we’d expected hill-wise, and we planned for a special needs stop back at our hotel room at around 85km.

May I say a few words about Coke in the middle of a ride? I am not normally a Coke drinker, but that small can of Coke was a little piece of heaven. We ate, shed a bunch of clothes, took a bathroom break, and then headed back out for round two.

We did not climb Callaghan twice, and I will admit this is the part of the bike course that scares me the most. Callaghan once is marvelous: it is 13km of mostly climbing, but with some breaks interspersed that really make it enjoyable. The descent is not my favourite thing: it’s steep in parts, and chilly. But still, it’s a descent. I do not think it will be enjoyable to climb Callaghan a second time. I think it will be cruel.

The ride back up to Whistler from the end of Daisy Lake had its own moments of cruelty, especially the second time around. Pacing is going to be everything, and weather will be a big factor. If it’s especially hot, that second loop of the bike course will be a grind. But . . . it’s doable. That was the feeling I wanted to be left with by the end of my ride, and I was.

I called it a day at 145km, which was about as far as I’d wanted to go at this stage of my training. Besides, I had a flat tire and I was back at the hotel. Yes, I should have changed it on the road for the practice. I regret not having done that. But it turned out to be a problematic flat and I’m quite sure I would not have found the source of the problem on the roadside and would have ended up with another tube with a slow leak—and I’ve spent enough money on tubes lately.

The rest of that beautiful Saturday we spent eating, sitting by the pool, and eating some more.

Sunday we ran—the longest run I’ve done since Christmas, which is still only a sad 10.5km, but it’s better than nothing and it didn’t destroy me. Here was our post-run guilty pleasure:

I’ll be going back up to Whistler in about a month to tackle the full 180km. I’m looking forward to seeing how that feels. In the meantime, I’m pleased with the weekend. Still in denial about the marathon, but denial has always served me well. When I’m in the middle of the marathon, I will be forced to come to terms with it. Until then, why worry?

Happy training.

Writer in Training: Progress Report #2

Eleven weeks to race day, which means the rides are getting longer, and brick workouts and open-water sessions are on the horizon.

We’re heading out soon for a training weekend up at Whistler, which is guaranteed to both be useful and contain at least one disaster.

Example: last year, Alta Lake was closed while we were there because the geese had taken it over as their personal toilet.

We wanted to do an open water swim, so someone in the parking lot suggested we head over to Green Lake. For those of you who don’t know (and we didn’t), telling someone to go swim in Green Lake would be a bit like telling a tourist in Vancouver they should swim in False Creek. Not advisable, though for different reasons.

Green Lake is cold. It is, in fact, fed by glacial streams and is the coldest body of water up at Whistler. In case you think a wetsuit made a difference, it didn’t. It was brain-freeze cold. To make matters worse, as soon as we got there and suited up, a group of about forty tourists showed up to head out on boats. The guides watched us getting into the water with barely disguised grins. How long will they last? Answer: not long. After about three minutes we climbed out sheepishly and went back to the car.

The year before that, our Whistler training session featured bears by the side of the road, and snow at the top of Callaghan.

As for training . . .

I’m starting to think the bike might be doable—though I say this before having ridden the course. I’m also in hard denial about the marathon.

The first thing anyone says when they hear I’m doing the race is, “Oh my God, you have to run a marathon.”

And I think, “No, I don’t.” But actually—yeah, I do. So there’s that.

However, I have discovered the painfully wonderful world of deep tissue massage, which might prove to be a game-changer. And . . . I have invested in a pair of Hokas for my long runs, the ugliest but perhaps best long-distance running shoes of all time.

I seem to have turned a corner with my Achilles injury, and I’m finally spending more time out on the road and less in the pool aqua-jogging.

Last weekend’s ride was the longest and hardest of my short cycling career: 132km, with 1700m of elevation. I felt surprisingly okay, though it helped to run into friends near the end who blocked the wind for me on the awful Lion’s Gate Bridge climb and kept me laughing. Post ride included bacon and eggs, and an unintended nap

Writer in Training: The Long Haul Makes You Weird

 

If you’re an endurance athlete, you have to be comfortable in your own head. I think this is why endurance sports have such a big mental component to them. I mean, all sports do, but endurance sports are a little different. Four or more hours on a bike—it’s a long time to be in your own headspace. When you get off, get home, talk to other humans again, you’re—well, you’re weird.

Or at least, I am. It’s a bit like being on a boat for a long time and then having to find your land legs again.

But the truth is, I like it. Because I’m a writer, I’m already a little off in that way. I’m used to spending a lot of time alone, and I’m very comfortable in my head.

What I’m finding with the long workouts (the rides and swims, that is; not the runs, because sad little 5k’s don’t have this effect on me) is that I zone out. I’m concentrated on what I’m doing, but there is a part of me that just . . . disappears.

Usually this starts out purposefully. I’m thinking about my manuscript—or about someone else’s that I’m editing. I’m thinking about the landscape I’m passing. A song gets stuck in my head. Somewhere along the way, my body goes on autopilot and it’s as if I’m not really doing anything.

Admittedly, this might be because my pace is slow. I’m not breaking any speed records on these workouts. But when you can fall into a steady rhythm without realizing it and just keep moving forward, it’s a nice place to be. It’s also probably as close to meditation as I will ever get.

But it doesn’t last long enough. Eventually, on the bike at least, my triceps start reminding me that yes, I am doing something, and they happen to think I’ve been doing it for too long, and can we please stop?

My aim is to extend the mindless autopilot for as long as possible before the physical complaints begin.

I’m curious to see what sixteen hours of racing will do to my headspace. You might not want to be the person greeting me at the finish line. I may not remember who you are.

Happy training!

 

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Writer in Training: Progress Report

I don’t like being reminded of the date these days. It’s getting closer to race day, and though I’m starting to feel more prepared, I still have a LONG way to go.

It seems training never goes as planned—for anyone. My daughter is dealing with a terrible time crunch that makes training nearly impossible. My son has misbehaving calves that are causing him no end of pain and suffering and, at this point, might force him to defer the race to next year. And I’m still battling my Achilles, though I am finally seeing some progress.

I’ve been working one-on-one with my amazing Pilates instructor at The Movement Studio, specifically to rectify this situation. For weeks now we’ve been using a jump board on the reformer, jumping and landing over and over again, first on one foot, then on the other. It’s a killer glute workout, especially if you use a band around your thighs.

But—I didn’t get it. What was the point of this?

Then one day last week I went out for my sad little 5k run (as a friend joked, only 37k to go), and as my feet hit the pavement over and over I started hearing Mark’s voice in my head from the jump board: “Soft landing.” And I thought, Oh. Soft landing. Like, RIGHT NOW. Immediately my feet came down differently—they came down the way we’d been training them to come down for weeks on end on the jump board. Duh.

This has changed everything. While I’ve given up looking for The Answer, the way my foot lands is certainly a big piece of the puzzle. Running is not yet problem-free, but it’s definitely feeling better than it did a month ago.

The 3k swims are no longer scary and don’t require a nap afterwards. Same with the 100k-plus rides, although this past weekend my weather app failed me and I ended up riding in both rain and hail for over two hours. By the time I got home I was a shivering mess. But the ride itself was not as hard as it had been a few weeks ago.

As a swimming friend likes to say, “You’re never ready for Ironman.” The closer it gets, the more I believe this to be true. I don’t know if I’ll ever actually feel ready. And injury seems to lurk around every corner. I wake up one morning with a creaky knee. Another morning it’s an achy shoulder. I feel like by the time race day comes around I’m going to look like this:

Happy training!

 

 

 

Writer in Training: Head Games

Photo by Marcus Ng on Unsplash

            This past week I did a swim workout that included three sets of 400s. 400s are not my favourite distance, and the final 200 of each set was supposed to be at tempo. I was dreading them right up until I had to do them. I started the first one and right away, my heart rate climbed and my form fell apart, because all I kept hearing in my head was, This is going to be hard.

            In fact, it wasn’t hard. 400 metres is not very far. Three times 400 metres is not very far. As soon as I’d done the first one, I realized I had built it up into something much bigger than it needed to be. I relaxed. The second one was easy; so was the third.

            The entire problem had been in my head.

            The physical aspect of training is obviously important, but so much of sports is a head game. What we tell ourselves, what we think about, how much we obsess over results and performance—all of these have a huge impact on how we end up doing on race day. I’m beginning to see that how we think impacts how we train, and I suspect it impacts how we heal from injury as well.

            I hate to sound like a Norman Vincent Peale book, but whatever you think you can or can’t do, you’re right. And the more attached you are to the results, the worse you will do. I don’t know why this is true; I only know that it is. The more something matters to you, the greater the chance that you will mess it up by obsessing over it.

            My training plan is posted on my wall, where I see it all the time. Those long swims and four-hour rides loom. Mostly I look forward to them, but every so often dread creeps in, or the worry that I won’t be able to finish the scheduled workout—especially when the time or distance has been bumped up. And then that harmful self-talk starts up.

            You’ve never ridden 100km. Maybe you can’t do it. You probably can’t do it. You’ll get to 90 and then what?  Etc. Etc.

We can talk ourselves into, and out of, almost anything. It’s why exercise programs are so hard for many people to make a permanent part of their lives. They think: Oh God, the pool will be cold, and it’s early, and I’d rather be in bed, and the workout is going to be hard, and I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t want to. So they don’t.

My body used to try to trick me out of swim workouts all the time. Before I had to leave for the pool, I would suddenly get cold, and my shoulders would get sore. I learned not to listen. When it comes to swimming, the only job I give myself is to pack my bag and get in the car, because I know the rest will take care of itself. With biking it’s only a question of putting on my shoes. (I don’t have this problem with running, because for me it has always felt like a gift. I don’t have to run. I get to run).

For the last few months, terror has been the main source of motivation for my training, but I now realize I need to rethink that. I need to stop telling myself I might not finish the race, or that it will be hard, or long, or painful. What it will also be is the race I’ve wanted to do for decades, and it will be in Whistler, one of the most beautiful places in the world. And I get to do it with two of my children.

One of my sons did the half-Ironman in Whistler with me this past summer. He says (and I agree) it was the most fun he’s ever had in his life. Ironman, he says, is just an opportunity to have twice as much fun.

Delusional? Maybe. But it’s my new way of looking at the coming months.

Last week’s ride was a milestone. They’re getting longer now. I’m excited!

Happy training!

Writer in Training: Expectation

Expectation has popped up so much lately in the conversations I’ve had with fellow triathletes that I feel compelled to write about it.

It must be the time of year. Winter training is coming to a close and race dates are creeping closer. The shadow of reality has begun to darken those secret dreams we have about ideal times and podium finishes.

And the reality is: training is hard. It’s also extremely time-consuming. Finding a balance between training and work/life/family is tricky. Ironman has a tendency to take over everything. Yet it isn’t possible to make your sport the number one priority in your life unless you happen to be either independently wealthy or a pro athlete—which means, you might not qualify for Kona, or Worlds, or whatever your dream happens to be.

I’ve always been a believer in dreaming big, so I happen to not be a huge fan of reality. But when it comes to training, I think there’s an important dance that needs to be going on between dreaming big and keeping both feet on the ground.

Expectation can mess with a person. It can make you train harder than you should, because you want so badly to make those times you think you should be capable of making. While this kind of striving is great, on the one hand—it makes you a better athlete—it can also make you an injured athlete. How do I know this? Hmm, let’s see. Two months off running because of an Achilles injury that was no doubt caused by SOMEONE pushing harder than they should have . . . . Yeah. Expectation is messy.

However, expectation is often part of the personality of an athlete. It’s probably the reason you started racing in the first place. It’s what gets you up at 5 AM to run, or gets you on the bike at 8 PM after a long day of work. Without it, you wouldn’t make it to the start line, never mind the finish line.

So, we need expectation. But we also need to find a way to keep it under control.

I hate to come back to Buddhism because it makes me sound way more chill about all of this than I actually am, but the Buddhists seem to get certain things right in this world. They have this idea about not holding onto stuff too tightly—and it feels appropriate here. Give everything of yourself while you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing, but then let go of it when it’s done. Meaning, train hard, but don’t obsess over it during the other times in your life. But I think it also means: don’t impose expectations, which are future-oriented, on the present reality of your physical capabilities.

This is 100% a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ situation. I haven’t found a way to master this. I have to remind myself repeatedly that I have a life, and Ironman is only one part of it. I also have to remind myself that regardless of how fast I think I could be, if I train at that level I will hurt myself.

It makes me very uncomfortable to tell anyone, myself included, to adjust their expectations. High expectation is the fuel that keeps us all going. I don’t want to hear that I should be okay with finishing at 16:59, or not finishing at all. I refuse to go into a race with that mindset, even if it means I might be disappointed.

I don’t care much about risking disappointment, but I do care about risking injury. That is a legitimate concern, and it’s an important reason to try, however reluctantly, to keep at least one toe in reality.

On that note, here is my run on Sunday. Yes, an actual run, outside. Slow as molasses: one minute jog, one minute walk. Ugh. But . . . I ran. And it didn’t hurt. I made a sweeping declaration to one of my sons this past weekend that I will no longer do anything stupid in my training. Let’s see how long that lasts