Wednesday, July 28, 2010

It's Just a Training Day...

How innocently those five words were spoken, back in March.

We were sitting outside with Dave, my soon-to-be-ironman coach, talking about my goals for ironman and the sorts of things I could expect in the build-up.  The south island half ironman at Lake Hood, Ashburton, which had been such an achievement for me last year, was now being described by Dave as, "just a training day".  That certainly put some perspective on things.  Something that was such a big deal first time round was now being well and truly put into its place in the overall scheme of things.

However Dave wasn't finished.  Last week he reduced the significance of Lake Hood even more with the comment.....

(wait for it...)

"don't worry about finishing it"

What?

That's right, Dave doesn't care if I finish the half ironman.

After staring gape-mouthed at him for what seemed like an eternity, I returned my jaw to it's correct position and he tried to explain.  And it goes something like this...

The goal is ironman.  Everything else I am doing is only of importance in relation to its ability to prepare me to finish ironman.  The half ironman at Lake Hood is therefore simply an opportunity to practice a race day - do a good swim, practice a smooth transition from swim to bike, do a good bike leg and then another smooth transition from bike to run.  As far as the run is concerned, that is the leg that is really hard on your body and takes the longest to recover from.  It's the discipline that will tip you over the edge, so to speak.  So I can choose to do only one lap (of three) of the run and then pull out if I want.  I could even choose to do only 100m of the run and then stop - Dave wouldn't care.  What is important is that I don't want to be spending too much time recovering from that event as it could compromise the overall training regime in the remaining 15 weeks before Taupo.

Sounds perfectly fine in theory.  But let's just think about that for a little bit, and think about the psyche of a person that is going to complete ironman.

A successful ironman lives by hundreds of mantras that all focus on one premise:  DON'T QUIT.  My physical ability to complete ironman is overshadowed by my mental ability to get to the finish line, no matter the pain or the time it takes to get me there.  It's one of my strengths in climbing my particular ironman mountain.  A favourite saying for many who undertake endurance events like this is "pain is temporary, quitting is forever."  The whole idea of entering an event, then, and NOT finishing it seems like a complete psychological cop-out, at a time when mental toughness is one of the defining characteristics of success.

You might not be surprised, then, that I've been struggling with this suggestion!

Somehow I've got to get my head around the idea of starting the half ironman with the intention of NOT finishing.  I have to refocus my goals for the event.  Instead of aiming to finish in a better time than last year, I should be aiming to produce better splits for the swim and bike legs and achieve trouble-free transitions.  Hmm, again, easier said than done!

Thankfully it appears I'm not alone with this mental dilemma.  I relayed this to one who has many ironman friends and, after he stopped laughing, Stephen confirmed that he has many mates whose coaches go mad at them because, despite their best intentions, they haven't been able to pull out of the half ironman early into the run.

It just goes to show that the force of mind over matter is obviously a strong one, and it's one I'm going to have to do some serious work on over the coming few months...

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