The next phase of Progression

February has now ended, and with it the Olympics have opened and closed, the last glass has been raised for stout month, and another Mt. Taylor Winter Quadrathlon has been completed. We got in a good block of training, and enjoyed life.

Now March is upon us and it seems like more than just the flipping of another page in the calendar. Our workouts have more purpose and focus (and are longer in duration!), and free time is getting tighter as both E and I have work obligations ramping up. The athletic focus is Ironman St. George. The work focus is projects that will finally be going Big Time, requiring us, the engineers, to provide technical support to the other staff running the manufacturing-scale equipment (this is just a little stressful, but also exciting to see our projects move into their next phase of progression).

All this has me thinking. Actually, it started a few weeks ago after Mt. Taylor and while the Olympics were still going on, I just haven’t had time to sit and reflect enough on it yet to get something composed enough to post here, but I digress.

Anyways, lately I have been thing about progression and growth. It fist started after Mt. Taylor was done and I noticed the close groupings of my finish times. Each year has its own story (the first year when I was only a few months out from peaking for agegroup worlds in Cancun, the year I got food poisoning AND forgot my bike shoes, the big-headwind-on-the-bike-down year, the “let’s try the ski up with no skins” year, the year of the new bike, etc.) yet all but 2 of the 7 finishes have me finishing within an 11 minute span that falls between 4:41 and 4:52. And I really want to be consistently under 4:30, which I have only done once, and just barely. Despite this fixation on a 4:30 finish time, I have not significantly changed my training, preparations, or mindset going into the race since year 2 (the goal year 1 was to finish and scope it all out). I want to “play with the big girls” without doing the work to move up to their level.

And that, my friends, is the problem: I keep putting the same “variables” in and expect a different output back.

I am a smart and intelligent person. I would never expect to use the same ingredients in a cooking recipe and get a tastier result. I would never expect to run the same chemical process at work and have a better yield or faster cycle time. Why, then, am I expecting to show up to Mt. Taylor with a good fitness base but no real hill climbing work, no snowshoe races, no change in training volume, effort, or composition (ratios of hard, easy, long, etc.) and expect to magically be 15-25 minutes faster than I always have been? Since the mountain is not getting shorter, less steep, or closer to Grants, NM, the only way I will race faster is if I get stronger, faster, smarter, or fitter. None of these changes come from wishing for them, they come with harder and smarter training.

This was a rough realization for me. I honestly had been thinking why can’t I break out of this mold and race faster at the Quad? I did the same things I’ve done every other year, and…… Oh. Yeah……Right. Guess it doesn’t work that way, does it. Well, shoot!

I’m only thankful had this little self-awakening before doing the next 2 ironmans, for that is something where I am also no newby yet feel like I have not yet reached my fullest potential. And so, with this little gem of knowledge re-learned, I continue on my athletic journey. A journey with a jam-packed 2010!

To keep focused and on track as this busy year progresses, I need to stay keenly aware of the fact that it doesn’t get any easier. The training, the personal choices and sacrifices needed to reach a challenging athletic goal all get harder to do as the bar is raised to a higher, better, faster goal. Exponentially so. Just to achieve past success takes a bit more effort, so any improvement will always require lots of creativity and hard work.

With that sobering, thought, I am ready to proclaim I AM READY. And I don’t mean maybe.

I am taking rest and recovery seriously this year (that almost seems like I’m showing my age, but faster, longer, harder doesn’t cut it anymore, I am no longer a twenty-something…..). I am making true efforts to make our healthy diet even healthier (tonight’s crock-pot dinner of red cabbage, sweet potatoes, apples, vinegar, and summer sausage is colorful, from scratch (except for the sausage), and anti-oxidant rich). I am willing to get on the trainer any night the schedule says to (we finally made peace sometime in February, the trainer and I), but I am also trying to hit target workout times right on the nose, no extras. I’m getting good sleep. I’m scheduling regular massage and supplementing that with good home-care. And I’m dreaming big, excited by the challenge, ready for the journey.

This brings me to my second reflection point of February: why I am an athlete and why I race. I started thinking about this during the Olympics when a high-school friend from long ago mentioned on facebook that she has the hardest time watching the Olympics, or any sporting events, because she finds it heartbreaking to watch people’s life-long dreams shattered in a split second if things go wrong.

While I think she has a point (there is no do-over in the Olympics, no insurance that if you Try Hard you will have Success, no assurance that you won’t get hurt), I also think she has completely missed the point. When an athlete shows up to the Olympics, or to any major event for them, they don’t bring their B-game. They bring their A-game. Something they have thought about, dreamed about, trained for, sacrificed for. Along the way they have grown and changed, shaped by the challenge before them. If the stakes are high enough, they might be a bit nervous, but also in awe of the opportunity they have had to grow, change, challenge, learn new things about themselves and what they are mentally and physically capable of, and now humbled by the opportunity to compete and further test and challenge themselves.

Yes, only one person wins the Olympics. They do not give out finisher’s medals, you have to be top-three to get hardware there. While everyone stating each competition might feel they are worthy of a medal, only 3 people will come away with one. And that can be heartbreaking. But rarely is it will-breaking. Even in defeat, we saw Olympians who were gracious, honorable, and continuing in their journey of learning and self discovery. And when it matters most, like at the Olympics, is when we give the most of ourselves. Todd Ludwig’s performance during the first Nordic Combined race was a classic example. This man had come out of retirement for these games because the US had a chance to finally medal in a sport where they have long lingers at the fringes. During the race he worked hard at the front while the lead pack drafted off of his efforts. In the final sprint to the finish, he ended up forth and was clearly frustrated that he had no medal to show for his enormous effort. Yet his teammate, Johnny Spillane, had hung with him and earned the US its first Olympic Nordic Combined (silver) Medal. And now the bar has been raised and more work will be needed to compete with the best in the world....

Bottom line? This is not a pony-ride, folks. You don’t expect to put in your penny and bob up and down for a few minutes while the music plays, and then have that very thing happen. To dream big, to risk big, is risky business. It can be very rewarding. It can be very disappointing. But, to me at least, it is also very life-giving. Taking that risk is hard, but the journey is oh so very worth it.

Here’s to hoping you all have something worth taking the risk for. Dream big….
-A