Gary’s Fitness Blog

I mentioned the other day that I had surpassed the amout of swimming I had completed in 2006… well yesterday, I surpassed the amount of cycling that I did in 2006 too!

This was a pretty big surprise for me when I started looking at the numbers, mainly due to the fact that I felt like all I did last summer was cycle … little running - no swimming.

But now that I think about it, I didn’t start cycling again until May of 2006. In contrast, I have made a point to be consistent with my cycling even during the winter months (thanks to a little bit of encouragement from Dean Hewson).

Why am I so hung up on my total amounts of swimming, biking and running? Read my post - “How to pass the ’suck threshold’ in triathlon” and you’ll get an idea why. The other reason for me is that it displays a little sign of consistency in training. It can be very hard to train a lot of hours over a years time if you are taking weeks or months off.

Recently I’ve seen my swimming benefit… hopefully other improvements will be witnessed too.

If you read my post “Talk yourself into a better triathlon performance“, then you know that I’ve been working in the vocabulary I use to describe myself and others. The Power of the Positive!

I shared that one way I always describe myself is by saying that I am a poor swimmer. Today I’ve become a swimmer for the year 2007! This fits well with the power statement I’ve been repeating, “I am a strong swimmer”.

Why am I a swimmer today? Because I just passed the total number of hours that I swam in the entire 2006 calendar year! In 2006, I swam a total of 30:53 hours…. a really low amount. Especially when you consider the majorit of that swimming was done in November and December. As of today, for 2007, I have swum 31:24 hours.

Look, I know it still needs to increase, but for today…. I am a swimmer! Check out my training log…… here.

I have been thinking about the Belmont Stakes race since they ran last week. If you are not familiar with the race take a look at these links:

“All Eyes on Rags to Riches“
“Rags to Riches makes history with Belmont win“.

When I moved to Kentucky in August of 2002, I did not have a clue about the horse industry. And to be honest, I still don’t have a clue. But as I continue to meet people that make a living with horses or have a horse hobby, I am becoming more nterested by the sport and by the athletes involved.

What are some of the things that make horse racing interesting? How about:

- the amount of care the horses receive and need

- the team of people (owners, trainers, jockeys, doctors, etc, etc) that are working to make one athlete their best

- the complete determination that these animals display when they race.

The amount of spirit that the horses display while they race is an example that moves me each time I sit to watch a race. I like to think that there is something very pure about their desire to race.

What makes the last Belmont so interesting? Well, the obvious answer is that Rags to Riches was the first Philly in over 100 years to win. It was a lesson for me that anything is possible. Don’t listen to the people who say something can’t be done.

Back to the pure motivation concept.. Brad Kearns talks a lot about the idea of triathletes racing with a pure motivation in his book Breakthrough Triathlon Training. (amazon link, my book review link). The idea of racing with pure motivation is one of the things that I’ve been trying to get my mind wrapped around. I guess one way to put it is - to develop a level of satisfaction from racing that is derived from an internal place opposed to external rewards. Ironically, when an athlete can move to this “place” the performances likely become more consistent and quicker. At least that is my hypothesis.

The biggest thing that I have taken away from and spent time thinking about is the team that surrounds Rags to Riches. I do not mean the specific people involved with her, but the concept of a team of individuals working together to assist an athlete.

In a way this is what we have tried to create as coaches at Mideast Multisport, but I’ve been more interested in this concept from an athletes perspective. If you have read anything about Lance Armstrong, you know that he was careful about who he allowed into his circle and he was meticulous about having everyone he needed as a part of his team.

I have also seen this concept - creating your own personal team - displayed by Gordo Byrn over the years. He has talked about the various coaches, mentors and training partners that he has associated himself with. He also has spent some time discussing that the “team” needs to assist your training. Don’t get too sucked into the momentum of the team, so that you forget what your goals/dreams/destiny are.

I wish I could share a lot of good ideas on how to set up a team for yourself, but I’m not sure that I know how to do that well. Sure, we can always find people with opinions and even a desire to help. But how do we balance the act of finding people to fill certain spots and filling those spots with peoplegenuinely interested in our success?

Let me know if you have any ideas….

Rags to Riches inspired a group of people with a great run at the Belmont. She did it even though there was a 100 years of history saying she couldn’t. But she didn’t do it alone. Her destiny is to be a great horse. The team around her allows her to experience and fulfill that destiny.

It has been a long time since I made an effort to consciously work on
my mental approach to racing. The last time I remember doing anything
consistently regarding my mental approach to health, fitness or racing
performance was the 2003 season.

That season happened to be my most consistent year from a performance point-of-view and one of the healthier years in my life. Here are some thoughts that I shared back then: Mental Training - for endurance athletes.

Now that I have neglected this focus for some time, I’ve been reading some new
materials, re-reading some old books, going back through my journals
and just trying to re-establish some old practices, such as my mindfulness meditation practice.

It has been an effort, just like any positive behavior change - I guess.
What I would like to do is start sharing some of the thoughts and ideas
I am having and trying to implement.

Here’s the first idea: Talk yourself into a better triathlon performance.

I just read Bobby McGee’s book, Magical Running : A Unique Path to Running Fulfillment. If you have ever wanted to move beyond the typical sports psychology ideas, then I would suggest that you pick
up the book and work through it. It reads more like a workbook than a
text book and the practice is worth the time in my opinion.

The chapter that I seem to be going back to again and again is chapter two
- “Affirmed Running”. The shortest explanation of the material is, we
are who we say we are. And this is in a very literal sense. This means
that the words and vocabulary we use to describe ourselves is who we
will become.

As I take the effort and give attention to my vocabulary, I notice some interesting things. One thing that I’ve noticed is that I always describe myself as a slow/weak/poor/terrible swimmer. This self description of my swimming has become habit over the years and is so common that it has become almost a joke to myself. The interesting aspect is that by characterizing myself in this way, others’ perception of me is one of a poor swimmer too.

There are two aspects to this concept that I see:

1. Self-fulfilling prophecy. When we talk about ourselves in specific ways, our behaviors will commonly reinforce those attitudes. This results in our reality confirming what the perceptions of our “Self” has always been.

I usually describe myself as a poor swimmer, therefore I don’t enjoy swimming. That attitude means that I often skip a swim to go run/bike or anything else. The lack of swimming reinforces my perception because I don’t swim enough to improve my ability.

2. It doesn’t have to be a conscious vocabulary. The example of my swimming attitudes and behaviors is easy because it is a fairly observable behavior and apparent in my conversations. But what about the conversations that I have within myself that I am not consciously aware of? Are there negative discussions about who I am, what I have become or what I want to accomplish that I am not aware of?

What about this example: A triathlete begins their training as a young adult and works themselves into great shape over a period of 5 years. They set a goal to qualify for the Ironman World Championships in Kona and it is a real possibility for them. As the race nears, they continue their efforts towards their goal, but then begin to have a little self doubt. They notice thoughts creeping in that don’t support their goals. Things like,

“You can’t compete against people who have trained for longer”

or

“Your competition has been doing this since childhood. How can you compete with that?”

The thoughts seemingly come from nowhere because the athlete is naturally a confident person in all areas of life. The idea here is that sometimes there may be some thoughts that are implanted or ingrained into our thinking that are not the way we perceive our self.

The key that I am learning is that positive self affirmations are an activity we need to participate in whether we think we need to or not.

Bobby McGee mentions in his book that we don’t have to even believe the things we tell ourselves. Why? Because the subconscious mind is not a logical mind, it will believe and/or absorb whatever we feed it. It then leaves the conscious mind to do the analysis. This is a great lesson!

This idea isn’t only valuable within athletics. I’ve seen positive affirmation activities used to improve one’s health too. Specifically, I remember a discussion where a cancer survivor made it a habit to look at herself in a mirror everyday and speak positive affirmations about her cancer. The one I recall her saying was,

“My body is cancer free”

It didn’t matter to her if it was true or not. She was trying to create a new reality.

Sharing my current affirmations:

I sat down and wrote a list of current statements that I wanted to keep in front of me on a regular basis. Here they are:

- I am a STRONG Swimmer.
- I am HEALTHY!
- I prevail and persevere when others do not.
- I have a DEEP fitness built from 9 years of training.
- I train wisely.
- I always race well and according to plan.
- I only have to be excellent in this moment, this breathe, this step, this stroke, this pedal stroke.

That’s the first lesson on mental training I wanted to share. Here are two activities for you to do:

1. Make your own list of 5 positive affirmations about yourself.

2. Hang that list where you can see it daily or share it with someone who
is supportive of your goal. Share it here in the comments if nowhere
else.

In January of 2006 I had a guy come to me and say, “I would like to qualify and do PBP in France next year.” My initial reaction was one of confusion with a lot of questions:

Q. What is PBP?
A. Paris - Brest - Paris.

Q. What kind of event is Paris - Brest - Paris (I knew it was Cycling..)
A. A 1200km Brevet.

Q. Did you say 1200km? And what exactly is a Brevet?
A. Yes it is 1200km… (I kind of got ill to my stomach and lost focus)

After a little bit of contemplating the nature of such an event, the journey began as George (the one that introduced me to randonneuring) and I started putting in some miles on the bike.

To really speed up the story, I’ll create a short timeline of major events along the the way.

Major Event #1: 5/27/06 - Horsey Hundred - a 100 mile ride in Kentucky, George’s first century ride. Flickr Photo Set

Major Event #2: 7/14/06 - 200km KY Brevet Route - we didn’t do the official Brevet, but we went and tackled the course on our own later on. The ride is likely my most memberable ride in the last 3 years. (Since my ride across Iowa) It was full of unleashed-chase-you-down-the-road-dogs and one major hill climb that about put me six-feet-under. It was also my single longest ride in one day when we finished at 130 miles. Flickr Photo Set, Blog post about ride

Major Event #3: 3/31/07 - 200km KY Brevet

Major Event #4: 5/19/07 - 400km St. Louis Brevet, Blog post

Major Event #5: 5/26/07 - 300km Atlanta Brevet, a great course and ride. The ride starts on an amazing bike rail/trail called the Silver Comet Trail. While on the trail the ride is flat and stress free, but once you get into Alabama it got a little more challenging. Ok, a lot more challenging. At least we were doing the 300km and not the 600km Brevet that day because they had some bigger mountains to climb.

Major Event #6 - 6/2/07 to 6/3/07 - 600km St. Louis Brevet, George’s Big Day! I didn’t do the ride with him, for a lot of reasons: I had a wedding to attend, I didn’t want try and recover from that kind of stress, I was a little bit of a chicken….

To let you know about the length of the event, Nikki and I stayed in St. Louis Friday night. I went to the start of the ride and watched them get set up and leave. Nikki and I traveled to Nebraska, meet up with some friends, went to a wedding reception, stayed out late, spent the night in Omaha, woke up and went on a longer run with another friend, traveled back to St. Louis… and drove a little bit of the course to see if they were about done. They were not finished. We felt a little guilty talking about how tired we were of driving, only to realize that George and the others had been on the bike the entire time. (I think they had a 2 hour hotel stay during the night…?)

My take home thoughts about this past 17 months:

1. Long distance cyclists are a little crazy!

2. In every ride there comes a point of “breakthrough”. This is where you realize that the body is willing to do a little more, even though it might be uncomfortable… but the body isn’t willing to carry on unless the mind has this specific breakthrough.

3. The amount of cycling and distances have helped me reframe my perspective of the Ironman bike leg. Prior to doing these mega-rides, I thought 112 miles was hardly achieveable as a stand alone ride. Knowing that I’ve ridden over double the distance in a single day instills a great mental boost…. even if the training isn’t “Ironman specific” as some may say.

4. People are able to achieve some remarkable things when they want to. Think about it for a second. On the morning of May 27, 2006 George had never ridden more than 70 or 80 miles at one time. In 39 hours on June 2/3, 2007 he rode 373 miles.

That’s Inspiration!

Thank you George for helping me remember what is possible.

Now as he begins a recovery period and preparation period for the PBP in August, I hope that I’ll be able to transfer some of those miles into Ironman speed for myself.