This past Easter weekend I was lucky enough to be in Mont Tremblant with Valerie and my boys. This is where my destined Ironman event is taking place in August. I was eager to bike and run the course to help satisfy my curiosity of whether my mental and physical fitness was on-track.
That Friday, I went out heart pumping, face smiling – ready to take on the well known hills of the region. My training plan had me tasked with a 4-hour or 96km bike ride – whichever came first. I had studied the on-line maps the night before and set out to take on the first loop of my Ironman distance bike course. That’s 90km.
When I saw the first hill my jaw dropped. It felt like I was seeing the Swiss Alps for the first time. It was a wall. I had driven the section of road before but its scale didn’t register the way it does when your legs are the pistons and heart is the engine. The quintessential devil popped on my shoulder. “You can’t do this.” “You should just head back.” I made it over the first hill and the second and third but after 40 minutes my legs were exhausted. Perhaps, I really was fatigued or maybe I had talked myself into it. I continued for another 20 minutes and double backed. I finished the day with 2 hours – half of my goal.
For the rest of the afternoon I was preoccupied with why I had run out of gas. Was I genuinely fatigued from 3 weeks of heavy training? Was I nervous on my new triathlon bike? Were the speeding cars on my left causing me anxiety? Rarely, had I not been able to complete my prescribed task. In my core, I started second guessing my ability to see my goal through.
On the drive home a few days later, I wrote my coach, Chuck, an analytical, but concerned email. He responded and said that this was probably not an issue but that we should talk on the phone. As we spoke he checked my fitness data and asked whether that was my first outdoor ride of the year. It was. He went on to tell me that it was common to struggle with your first ride of the season on pavement. I had accumulated fitness indoors over the winter but was not able to express it outside yet. It takes times to acclimatize. Relief came over me. I got the sense that he had had this call dozens of times.
It is tough to accept that progress does not occur in a straight upward trajectory – especially when you are committed. Sometimes a few steps sideways or backwards are part of the inneviatble journey to the end result.
May 09, 2017
