04/22/08
Running the River...
From an email to X, who is seeking to drop weight from his current 240 lbs and do his first triathlon...
Category: Training
Posted by: marc
Back in 1987 when I was 20 years old I got it into my head to "do the Ironman" one day. My first view of it was on Magnum PI, then the famous Julie Moss finish a year or two later. I was hooked and 1987 was my start. I bought a new bike and decided one weekend that fall to ride to Canmore and back -- about a 200k ride! I didn't have a clue what I was doing - just hopped on and went for it after about 4 weeks of building up from 20k to my longest ride hitherto -- a 64k jaunt on which I bonked so bad a car stopped and asked me if I wanted a ride home.So off to Canmore I went. One water bottle. A few Mars bars. A 100k to the turn-around...fortune looked kindly upon me that day however -- the new car wash in Canmore had its grand opening that day and along with it a free pancake breakfast, with all the Kool Aid you could drink. Half-way home, having reached Canmore, I staggered off the bike and weakly dragged myself to the picnic tables and proceeded to load up. And load up some more. I had no money with me (the thought never occurred to me!) and so all I could eat was all the nutrition I had for the return journey on my skinny little legs, untrained body and unfit glycogen reserves.
Off I went, homeward bound. One pedal stroke after another, step by step. I managed but it wasn't pretty. Had to stop at Chief Chiniki gas station out on the Indian Reserve and filled up on water and stole a few sugar packets. Carried on. Up Bear Hill, two miles of agony, and then the long 40km of rolling hills into Cowtown (Calgary) and finally the last 2km climb back up to my parents' house. Toast. The worst part was that I'd worn Adidas shorts -- the chafing was killing me. I was depleted, bonked, tired, dehydrated, but the chafing hurt more than all of that combined.
Getting it done doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't have to be mapped out. It doesn't have to have a race date and a starting line. There doesn't even have to be a finish line. The point is to get out there - the course itself is just a virtual concept. It means nothing - it just dangles the carrot.
And the carrot is not weight loss. The carrot is HOW YOU CAN LIVE YOUR LIFE HAVING LOST THE WEIGHT.
That doesn't start when you have lost the weight.
THAT STARTS NOW.
The image above speaks about exactly YOUR JOURNEY. It's a picture of John Powell's dory when he set out to navigate the Colorado River. No one had ever done that (that we know of, voluntarily in recorded history -- I'm sure the odd Native American got washed downriver for a good stretch every now and again...)...yet he went. No GPS. No maps. No knowledge of where he'd end up, let alone what lay around the next bend in the river.
In a row boat. With a chair strapped to the deck. And with one arm overseeing it all, there was Powell tied to the chair.
That's all we're doing here. Living starts now. Now IS living. There is no road map for living.
So take heart - your discouragement isn't actually discouragement. It's how this sport and the bombardment of media out there has told you you should be feeling because you didn't follow their "rules" of how this should be done and you didn't slot into the myriad race "experiences" we read about out there, by the dozen. If you're going with ironguides, you can throw your preconceptions out the window. Because they don't hold water where we're going.
You have trained. You are fit enough to do a triathlon right now. Today. You have the "data points" and saw them do the race on the weekend. There's no reason you can't. So don't overthink it.
This weekend: Get up early, simulate the distance as best you can (make the swim loop shorter and swim multiple times 100m out and back, or parallel to the shore, or whatever most conveniently affords the best "safety") -- and report back.
You don't need an entry fee to be a triathlete.