Know Thyself

I have finally finished the 3rd season of Lost (just in time for the season premiere). I felt that my I.Q. hadn't dropped enough from watching so much TV that I decided to watch some more. I tuned into "American Idol"--auditions in high definition no less. Scores of people spoke with tremendous confidence and hope into the camera and announced to the world that they were going to Hollywood, they were the next American Idol only to completely bomb their audition. Most of them were tone deaf and made up for being out of tune or having a mediocre voice by singing loudly or singing multiple notes (all out of tune) accompanied by gesticulations. (Yes, deep in my heart I am much more Simon Cowell than Randy or the ever insipid Paula.)

I thought,"Can't these people hear themselves? Are they that deceived about their true ability or lack thereof to sing?"

Post-audition interviews: the ones who don't make to the next stage are not so much disappointed, but angry and incredulous that the judges couldn't see or hear how great their performances were. So even having 3 people in the music industry tell them that they're not cut out for stardom doesn't bring about much self-awareness.

It makes me wonder about Ironman, especially FIRST Ironman, expectations. I have spoken to alot of fellow triathletes about their first Ironmans since completing my first one last July. While the reasons why, the training methods, the finishing times were all different, the roller coaster ride of emotions that culminated in a finish line moment of happiness, relief, pride only to be followed by some disappointment with the overall time was the same. The superstudly triathletes who finished their first IM's around 10 hours were just as disappointed about not finishing 9:30 as BOP'ers were for not breaking 13 or 14 hours. I heard:

"I just ran out of gas on the run."

"I could've thrown down a sub 3-hour marathon if it weren't for those blisters."

"Everyone got a nice long look at my disc wheel cuz I was only averaging 19 mph on the bike"

I thought, "How could some of these people be disappointed?" In my dreams, I couldn't throw down a stand alone sub 3-hour marathon or hope to ride the IMLP bike course averaging 19 mph. It seems that our expectations are relative to our perception of our performances and ability. So then, if our performance falls very far off our expectations are we like those tone deaf people who audition for American Idol and can't believe they weren't picked to go to Hollywood? Seems that the accuracy of our expectations is directly proportionate to the how well we know our abilities and performance.

Though I was told ad nauseum that to set time expectations for my first Ironman was foolhardy, I still did it because I'm pig-headed and fiercely competitive. Like so many first timers, I multiplied my 1000m swim test time by 4, added it to my long ride time, then added that to a run time derived from my long run. Voila! I was gonna freakin' break 13 hours at Lake Placid and have enough energy to cartwheel across the finish line like Heather Golnick. As you can guess, my prediction was no where near the truth of what happened on July 22, 2007. I made up for my lack of speed by perseverating over my nutrition. Despite an unexpected mental meltdown halfway through the run, I kept going. It wasn't pretty and nowhere close to 13 hours.
So, was I that delusional freakshow that tries to sing a Mariah Carey song without the vocal cords to hit the high notes? Today, God I hope not! I don't think I am. On July 21, 2007? Yeah, probably.
Alot of Ironman race reports include some statement about how much you learn about yourself or what your made of during the race. I must say that on that day I learned that I could finish I what I started despite some pretty dark moments. In the days that have followed that race, I have a clearer picture of the true depth of my fitness and mental toughness and that there's alot of work to be done before I finish under 13 hours at IMLP. Yep, that first Ironman was a good, long look in the mirror of athletic truth--not just a flat picture, but a 3-D image that I'm still trying to figure out and more importantly, improve.

I Heart NY

The heat wave has come to an end here in Upstate NY. Snow covers the ground. The sky is the color of prison sheets; and the air bites back. It seems that every laundry load is 80% wicking, technical, wind-proof, or fleecy training clothes. Having spent most of my life on the East Coast, I enjoy this time of year: post-holiday winter. No lights, decorations, or carols to hide that fact that most living things in this weather have gone into a dormant state. I think most folks who live in northern climes and play in it this time of year do so because it's a sort of badge of honor or a thumbing of the nose to those who live in San Diego.
I spent 3 years living in Seattle and remember the first (and only) snowfall while I was there. The city came to a standstill from 3 inches of snow that melted by noon. Only 4 salt trucks for the entire city--and salt wasn't even used. Apparently, it's bad for the salmon. I was told that the city's snow strategy was to pull out all the "Street Closed" signs. We East Coast transplants scoffed at our West Coast brethren and told exagerrated stories of Nor'easters that buried us up to our eyeballs and how we dug out of snow clotted streets with mere kitchen utensils. They had their turn at scoffing when 4 months later I was huddled with my fellow New Englanders under a desk during an earthquake. I'd take a lifetime of snowy, frigid winters over one minute in an earthquake.
This time of year is about stripping down to basics. The air is bracingly clean and there's a slim strip of pavement or trail that isn't too icy to run or snowshoe. Training is base building: just getting in slow steady miles and meters. No fancy speedwork or testing out nutrition on long rides. I don't find this time of year boring at all. Sherry's mantra has always been,"We run in ANYTHING!" The rewards of extracting myself from a warm bed are crisp sunrises where the snow hangs in the air like magical dust and every woodpecker, chickadee, blue jay, red-tailed hawk, and kestrel makes themselves obvious with clear birdsongs against bare trees. 85 degree yoga studios feel best this time of year.
In no time we'll be outside doing our long rides at midday, trying to acclimatize to the heat and fine-tuning our sodium intake. Sunny and humid race days will be upon us. Until then I'm more than happy to don my mittens, tighten my snowshoe straps, and see just how windproof my running jacket is. I'm in no hurry.

The Currency of Credibility

Because of the nature of my practice at the Wound Clinic, I spend alot of time chitchatting with my patients. We mostly talk about their health and families, but many of them (Bless their hearts!) really enjoy hearing about my training and racing. They're always surprised to hear that I have a coach. Alot of them are amused that I would spend that much time and money on a hobbie. Most of them are curious as to why I need someone to tell me how to workout and be healthy if I'm a doctor. I tell them,"Just because I'm a doctor doesn't mean I have clue or any meaningful experience in training and racing a triathlon successfully." They usually don't believe me at first, but are slowly convinced when I tell them that most doctors have at best incomplete knowledge and almost no experience with sports nutrition, exercise physiology, or the psychology of motivating people.

I really mean that!--especially the last item. I think my patients do what I tell them to (or lie about it) because I have M.D. after my name, a wall of diplomas to prove it, and wear a white coat. I'm not saying that they shouldn't (they really SHOULD). My education and experience certainly warrant credibility for general surgery issues. However, trust is a different issue.

That being said, I must say that I find my coach, Mary, utter credible; and I trust her. She has alot personal experience and knowledge of triathlon training and competion. She also knows the limits of her experience and knowledge, isn't afraid or embarrassed to point it out, and will seek out answers outside those limits. Before the eyerolling starts, this is not a shameless plug for Train-This! and I'm not getting a free month of training for this rant. I think we should all examine why it is that we have a coach, why it is that we find that coach credible, whether we trust this coach, and the real reasons for our compliance (or non-compliance) with training recommendations.

Obviously, someone who has more experience and knowledge about the pursuit of our goals is good resource to have. However, faster splits are not always the result of more experience or knowledge. No duh! you may say but I find that alot of athletes don't want to hear what you have to say unless or until you can run, bike, swim, or race faster than they can. I take Mary's advice not because she can hand me my ass in a triathlon. There are legions of fellow triathletes who consistantly show me what's up at the races. However, I suspect that a majority of them couldn't give me a reasonable and intelligent explanation for the way they train. I take Mary's advice because it's reasonable, intelligent, and makes sense to me. Because of that, I think I'm pretty compliant with the training plan that she lays out for me.
No matter how smart or experienced or fast a coach/mentor is if you don't trust them you won't stick to their plan. In medicine, I think that faith in treatment is essential for the success of treatment. In triathlon, I think you really must believe that what you are doing (training, nutrition, timing of races) is going to give you the results you want (within reason, of course). Faith and belief are not quantifiable (I could really use a faith-o-meter for my run!), which therefore puts it in the part of coaching that is art (vs. science).
Okay, end the attack of the paratheses.
For many reasons, I know I could never coach myself in triathlon. When I can't make a leap of logic for a certain training recommendation or when I can't think of a good reason but I just don't wanna! wahwahwah!, I do what Coach tells me anyway because I trust her. Her guidance has help me reach my triathlon goals for all 3 seasons I've been with her. Again, I'm not getting an extra recovery week for this!
I think it's a good idea to really understand why we don't want to do something and why we eventually do or don't do it. Is it because we all like to do what we're good at more than practice at something that makes us feel slow or awkward? Is it because coach sounds like mom/dad/drill sargent/my least favorite teacher in grade school and no one's gonna tell me what to do? Is it because coach sounds like mom/dad/my favorite teacher in grade school and I wanna be good kid? Or is it because yeah, it makes sense and we should HFTU and git'er done?

Okay, Mary...a complimentary pair of Train-this underwear would be great ;)

An Unexpected Mental Workout

I've been fretting for the last 36 hours over my run test today. Academically, I never excelled at taking multiple choice (more like multiple guess to me) tests. I'd read the question and come up with an answer that wasn't exactly like any of the choices. My ego says that those tests really don't measure my true fund of knowledge. As a result, I have test anxiety.

So for the last 36 hours I ate more carbohydrates, slept 10 hours last night, had 9 gm of carbs/kg of my weight for breakfast and set out on my run test. The loop around my house is 3.31 miles and has the same elevation gain as the course I did my first run test. I didn't want to miss yoga this morning to run the local 5K and convinced myself that I could save $15 of the registration fee and run at home. Garmin on, I warmed up for 3 minutes, hit the lap button and took off.

I told myself that I would not overthink this run, not let the neurosis spiral me into negativity. I told myself that I would fearlessly face the pain, embrace it, eat it without chewing, and fart it out my ass. The first mile hurt, but I kept counting my footfalls: 3 steps per second, a rhythm I've trained almost to instinct. The second mile hurt a bit more, but mom's HTFU voice told me to lean forward at my ankles, relax my shoulders, and dig deep. At around the end of the second mile, I looked at the time elapsed on the Garmin. I realized that I would have to run faster than a 6 min/mile to make my first run test time. WTF?!

The floodgates opened and thoughts of defeat washed over me: "My god, Boon, YOU SUCK! You're gonna be 3 minutes slower than you were 6 weeks ago! Did I mention YOU SUCK? So much for your faith in the whole Vdot/E-pace thing! You are not the runner you used to be."

You get the point.

I made the last turn to the last mile and faced the steepest hill of the run. I knew happy, positive thoughts weren't going to cut it for me. I knew distracting myself by looking around for the kestrel (the bird, not the bike) that perches in the field on the right side of the road wouldn't work either. So I summoned the most calm and assertive voice I could, "So what if it's 3 minutes slower, FINISH IT. Finish it strong."

I charged up the hill and nearly puked at the top. So what if I ran slower, I could at least be proud of my effort up this hill, at least I will finish strong.

3.1 miles came quickly and I hit the lap button. 3 minutes slower? Nope, those were the 3 minutes from my warm-up--the time display is total time elapsed, not lap time! Geez! My oversight and stupidity is stunning and quite funny.

The real exercise this morning was not in my legs, but in my head. 2 years ago during IM Lake Placid 2006 I asked Kelly Berkiessel about her experiences in Ironman racing, particularly IMLP. I had never done an Ironman at that time and was excited about signing up the next morning.

I asked, "Kelly, when was your 'dark moment' during this race?"

She told me that it started at the bottom of the hill by the horse stables and continued up to the turn around at the end Lake Placid Drive.

She said,"It's basically one long uphill that doesn't seem to end. You really have to control your negative thoughts in a race like Ironman."

I didn't really grasp the truth of her statement until 6 months ago when I was running up that very hill during IMLP and was completely annihilated by my negative thoughts. At no point in my training did I think that I would be done in mentally. I had prepared for goggles being kicked off my head, flat tires and exploding bikes, blisters, hyponatremia, dehydration, and gastrointestinal shutdown. I never thought for a minute that thoughts and emotions churning between my ears would bring me to a standstill. I'm not a pessimist, a defeatist, an Eeyore in life--why would I be one at Ironman--the thing I've wanted to do since I saw Julie Moss claw her way across the finish line?

I've taken these last 6 months to figure out that question, to really face my emotions and thoughts about my athletic performance and ultimately myself without judgement. Yep, self-awareness is certainly enlightening, but getting there can be difficult and painful. I would like to stop the "You suck" voice in my head. However, until I do there's no point in feeling bad about it or hating that voice and feeling bad about that.

Today I hope I did what Kelly told me about in 2006. I hope I'm training myself to quiet the doubting voice, to control my negative thoughts. It was worth those 3 minutes of inaccurate slowness.

My First Sweetspot Ride

This week I rode my first sweetspot ride. I made a course on the Computrainer named,"Utterly flat 21 miles". It is exactly that: straight and flat. I made the course that way because I don't have a good sense of wattage output on the bike. I sense my cadence to within 2 rpms and my heart rate to within 5 bmp as a result of 7 years of training with a bike computer and HRM. Watts...well, I know that 60 watts is a stroll in the park and 450 watts really hurts---in between is anyone's guess. So figured I'd start with a flat course on a trainer to eliminate variables such as wind, temperature, and grade. I just want my perceived exertion, watts, and cadence the only things on my radar and hopefully, some physical and cognitive connection will be made. Then I'll add grade and eventually while riding outdoors wind and temperature will be thrown into the equation.

Another change I've made for this season is to practice mental focus while training. It's easy to do with the harder workouts because you're a captive audience to your own pain. On the long easy sessions, I would think about grocery lists, do some birdwatching, and come up with names for roadkill. Not this year! On the runs, I've taken to counting my footfalls to keep a cadence of 90+ rpm. It's strangely mesmerizing and peaceful even while I'm running up hills. On the trainer, I've got numbers: watts, cadence, speed--and my mom's voice.

I am a graduate of Momma Boon's Culinary Boot Camp. My mother is an incredible cook, gardener, amateur botanist, and drill sargent. When we came to America in the early 70's, we lived in Brooklyn, just across the bridge from Chinatown. My father and brother are very picky eaters and only eat authentic Thai and Chinese food. Mom accomodates their gastronomic fussiness. As a result, I spent many hours of my childhood and teen years in her kitchen doing most of the cooking prep work. Because Thai and Chinese people don't eat with knives at the table, there's alot of cutting up of veggies and meat. Mom would stand over my shoulder as I was chopping/slicing, making shumai, washing veggies. She was constantly watching and coaching,"Too thick...too thin...that's cut unevenly...don't bruise the veggies!"

So I'm on the trainer, 300 miles from Mommycakes, and I hear,"Don't slouch on the aerobars...keep the pedal strokes even...that's a perfectly rolled eggroll!" Okay, she would never say any of those things. My point is that my internal discipline voice, the voice of HTFU is my mom's. It may sound nagging or mean to some, but to me--I'm hard-wired to have it motivate and encourage me. In reality, she would probably never stand over me while I rode my trainer and critique my cycling form. She's told me several times that all this cycling is going to give me huge calves like those people who ride rickshaw tricycles for a living. Well, I bet those rickshaw drivers could throw down some impressive bike splits!

I felt strong on the ride and the hour went by very quickly. I'm looking forward to the next one, but now it's time to go make some exquisite shumai and eggrolls.

A Beautiful Day

Thanks to the best fiancee on earth I was able to more or less sleep for 36 hours this past weekend, getting up only to eat and go to the bathroom. I have dreamed to being born in the next life as a lioness in the Serengeti: a life of hanging out with my family, punctuated by quick bursts of energy, teamwork, and rewards of eating alot of red meat, and best of all 20 hours of sleep a day. Thank you again, Kevin--this weekend I was living the dream!
The rest launched me back into the land of living; and I'm feeling 90% back to completely healthy. I ran for the first time in 10 days on New Year's Eve, a 30 minute E-pace run in the crisp winter air that was glorious. I quickly found comfort in the rhythm of my cadence and lost myself in counting my footfalls. Most of my fluid losses was through my runny nose. I visualized the cold viruses draining out of my head.
Kevin worked the downtown fireworks detail that night so he didn't get home until 1:30 am. We had a candlelit champagne toast and dined on the most pungent French cheese I could find at Wegman's . Then only a few hours later we were in the snowy parking lot at Mendon Ponds Park for a New Year's Day run with our friends. The roads weren't plowed that early in the morning so we all ran in the snow-covered roads with white flakes falling quietly around us. I ran with Mary and Dana. We chatted about Ironman, Mount Everest, and Luc--and in a blink the run was done. When the boys returned, I showed them just how an Asian girl can throw snowballs--very poorly!
Later that evening, Kevin and I talked about our 2008 goals. He thought I could take 15 minutes off my run time from last year's Eagleman. It was hard for me to see that given my E-pace is 10:40 min/miles, but I was excited and energize by the possibilities. I am fully aware that I lead a charmed life; and everyday I try to have the utmost gratitude for my health, my family, and Kevin. Today I wanted to put my thoughts down in words. What a wonderful way to start the new year: A day filled with recovery, reunions, champagne, and possibilities!