The Songs That Save Me

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. -- Bob Marley

The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with. -- Bruce Springsteen

This weekend I had my first power test on my bike - to start making good use of that awesome Christmas present from my husband.  Power tests, for the uninitiated, suck.  A lot.  It is all about medium-length ALL OUT intervals.

When your coach uses the terms "vomit-inducing" and "lung burning" in the instructions...you know you're in for a good time.  :)

Usually when I'm on the trainer, I watch TV.  It's good guilty pleasure time and often, since we have side-by-side trainers, IronSherpa and I catch up on some of the series we're watching.  But I knew this weekend's ride would be different.  I wasn't going to have the wherewithall to focus on the television if I was truly focused on the intervals.

Instead, I loaded up my favorite tunes, popped on some headphones, and jacked up the volume on my iPod.  Yeah, I know.  It's not good for my ears.  It was, however, super necessary for my success for this training session.

Songs are personal - hearing a song often takes you back to a place, a memory, an event...so of course these will vary by people.  But let me tell you about some of the songs that saved me - that pushed me, that made the intervals hurt a little less, that made what my coach called AN EXCELLENT POWER TEST possible (her caps, not mine!).  I didn't time these out in any particular way - I just took one of my "pump it up" play lists and put it on shuffle.  Sometimes I think my iPod possesses some sort of intelligence...because a lot of times just the right song pops up at Just. The. Right. Time.  Crazy, right?

Warm-up Power Interval (3m ALL OUT):  Kanye, Stronger

N-now th-that that don't kill me

Can only make me stronger

Three minutes ALL OUT is hard, but it'll look easy after I finish...the best way to think about this workout (and all the devious workouts my coach plans based on my power numbers) will either kill me or make me stronger.  Great song to get me into the right mindset for this workout.  (Spoiler alert - I didn't die, so I guess this workout made me STRONGER!)

Power Interval #1 (9m ALL OUT):  New Order, Shell Shock

Hold on!  It's never enough

It's never enough until your heart stops beating

The deeper you get, the sweeter the pain

Don't give up the game until your heart stops beating

Damn.  Nine minutes all out is really flippin' hard.  Time to get deep in the pain cave and embrace the pain.  I actually smiled when this song shuffled up.  I probably shouldn't be smiling, it is harder to breathe, but it made me super happy and I rocked on through the interval in part on this song.  This song was also the part of the soundtrack for my high school career...those memories made me smile too.  :o

Power Interval #2 (9m ALL OUT):  Van Halen, Right Now

Miss the beat, you lose the rhythm, and nothing falls into place

Only missed by a fraction, slipped a little off your pace

The more things you get the more you want

Just trade in one for the other,

Workin' so hard to make it easier, whoa

Got to turn, c'mon turn this thing around.

Right Now, hey, it's your tomorrow.....

So...at the beginning of overtime at Capitals games in the early 2000s, they always played this song.  (And probably at every critical moment in sporting events in the late 90s and early 2000s everywhere, but hey, we were in DC and I love hockey.  What can I say.)  Anyway...just the first couple notes of the opening riff and I was on fire.  Plus it's a nice long tune...so by the time it was over, I was a good way through the last hard interval.  Which was beyond hard.  OMG.  I was dying...but I kept pedaling my little heart out.  It's my tomorrow on the line.  (BTW - the video for this still plays in my head when I hear it.  Crazy.)

Cool Down:  Imagine Dragons, I Bet My Life

Now remember when I told you that's the last you'll see of me

Remember when I broke you down to tears

I know I took the path that you would never want for me

I gave you hell through all the years...

OK.  So this song doesn't fit quite as nice, but I giggled when it hit during my cooldown because I was crying.  I am an exertion crier.  So embarassing.  Whenever I give it my all, I end up in tears afterwards.  Usually it happens after races...but yeah, I was tearing up on the trainer during the cooldown of the power test.  Which I guess is good, because it means I gave my coach everything I had (as opposed to the hell I usually give her...hahahaha).  

So there's the story of my successful power test...and the songs that saved me.  

Snow Day Sunday at the YMCA

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event.  You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? -- J.B. Priestly

I go to the gym three days a week.  You have to or else -- I don't want to be the guy that dies shoveling snow. -- Douglas Coupland

I live in the mid-Atlantic.  We get snow every year, but we deal with it very poorly.  When the flakes start flying, schools start to close.  An inch on the ground, the churches shut their doors.  Two inches, and the entire city shuts down.

This past Saturday, we got between 6-8 inches.  As you can imagine, starting Friday night, everything shut down.  EVERYTHING.  (In fact, the kids just went back to school today -- Thursday -- which is totally insane and a different story altogether...they should have been back Tuesday at the latest.  Rant over.)  Anyway, Saturday was a day where everyone bunkered down in their houses.  And it was good, and kind of magical.  We woke up Saturday morning to a magical winter wonderland.

Then it was Sunday.  The churches were closed.  Stores were opening late.  But the key notice we all were waiting for...when would the Y open?  I mean, you can't run outside when there is that much snow (and we don't plow...that's why snow is so devastating).  And you've been housebound for 24+ hours, so you're getting a little twitchy.  When the Y opened late, at noon, on Sunday...the place was mobbed.

Adding to the perfect storm (pun intended), this snow day happened in early January.  Not only was the Y teeming with twitchy people who needed to get out of their house and twitchy fit people who hadn't been able to exercise in a day or so, there were also a large number of twitchy resolutionaries.

This, however, is not a post bashing on resolutionaries.  I am happy for them.  And if even one of them is still at the Y in February, that's a win in my column.  (I also prefer resolutionaries to resoluters...resolutionaries makes them sound like people who are interested in creating large changes in their worlds.  Resolutionaries - I salute you!)  And so while some people were irate about how busy the Y was at noon on Sunday, I'm OK.

It doesn't mean I just rolled with it - I got to the Y at least 5 minutes before it opened, because there are only so many treadmills and I wanted to be sure I got one right away.  People who did not think so far ahead got there at 5 after 12 and were sorely disappointed that the cardio machines were rapidly filling up.  Also, my training session was about an hour and a half...and the machines turn off at an hour, so I'll admit that I engaged in some subterfuge to reset my machine without losing it at 60 minutes.  (Uh, just tying my shoe.  Nothing to see here.  Nope, not done now.)  By then the Y was starting to flow a little better and treadmills were opening up here and there every 5-10 minutes, so I don't feel bad about hogging one.  You gotta do whatcha gotta do.

Winter is a hard time for triathlon training...getting to the pool when it's cold and dark, being confined to the treadmill by the snow and ice, and the trainer...the trainer...the trainer.  But it's also a time to remember that everyone started some time.  Look how far those of us who stick with it have come.  Later this spring, we can look forward to welcoming new triathletes to our ranks...remembering that they started at the hardest time and stuck through it for the least fun parts of training.  Resolutionaries - I salute you!  Can't wait to call you TRIATHLETE this summer.

Practically (IM)Perfect in Every Way

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.  Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.  You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something. -- Neil Gaiman

Accept what people offer.  Drink their milkshakes.  Take their love. -- Wally Lamb

January.  The magic month of good intentions.  "I'm going to follow my training plan to a tee.  And eat clean every single day.  And not drink ever.  And be practically perfect in every way."  At least that's what most New Years' resolutions sound like in my head.

I'll admit, I have quite a big problem with all-or-nothing thinking.  If I can't do it perfectly, then why do it at all?  I know, logically, that isn't the right approach...but it's just the way I'm wired.  This all-or-nothing thing also makes me super-excited to do everything right at the beginning of the year, or the beginning of the month, or the beginning of the week.  Because then I can do it ALL right.  You understand this, don't you?  I know I'm not the only person who works this way.

So every January, I decide to change from the horrible eating and drinking habits I engaged in over the holidays.  Or for the month of December.  Or since Thanksgiving.  (Or heck, since "race season" ended in October...or maybe since last January 15...)  I'm going to eat clean.  And follow my training plan.  And not drink.  And be perfect.

And then it's January 4, which is a super special day in our house, because my favorite youth triathlete has a birthday.  This year she's 12.  And she's pretty awesome.

And she wants cake.  And ice cream.  Because she's 12 and it's her birthday.  I want nothing more than to celebrate with her and her awesome self.  So tonight I will have cake.  And ice cream.  Because I love her.

Then the Christmas stuff will come down and I'll get ready to start a new semester of teaching...and I'll want wine.  Because I'm old and I want nothing more than to celebrate the change of seasons in my life.  So I will have wine.  Because I love my life.

Pretty soon, it will be mid-January...and IronSherpa will have a birthday.  I won't tell you how old he is.  (I will tell you I'm jealous of both him and my daughter...they turn their USAT age before any races, so they don't have that weird mental thing of trying to remember how old they really are.)  Anyway, on his birthday, we will have cake.  And ice cream.  Because he's old and it's his birthday.  And he will want some wine.  So I will have cake and ice cream and wine.  Because I love him.

And then January will end, and I will think - crap, what happened to my resolutions...to train perfectly, to eat perfectly clean, to drink nothing fun?  

Rather than make crazy resolutions that I know I can't keep, I think it's a better resolution to lose my all-or-nothing thinking.  I will not train perfectly.  I will not eat perfectly.  I like wine too much to not drink it.  

But I can be practically imperfect in every way.  I will eat clean as much as practical...but cake and ice cream is more important.  I will not drink as much as I did during the holidays...but celebrating little events of every day life matters.  I will train as practically perfect as I can...but I know that if a day goes south and things go off the rails...there will be another workout for me tomorrow.  Because life and love matter.  And no one is perfect.

Happy New Year's 2017 - the year of FINISH

I'm racing against me.  As long as I come across the finish, I'll be okay. -- Ruben Studdard

When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. -- Isak Dinesen

A couple years ago, I was in a book club on Facebook with some old friends where we read & discussed One Word That Will Change Your Life.  Basically, rather than setting goals or making resolutions, you pick a word that is the driving force of your year.

I've been thinking about 2017...and how resolutions usually don't stick and I'm not so great at goal setting...and so I've decided to pick one word instead.  My word for 2017 is FINISH.

If you know anything about my race season last year (or even the last couple years), you're nodding your head.  This is the most obvious word ever for the most unlucky triathlete around.  2017 is clearly the year I will finish an Ironman.  And all the other races I set out to do.  Let this year be the year of no hypothermia, no head kicks, no hurricanes, nothing that will stand between me and the finish line of my races.

But if FINISH is the driving force of my year, it can't really be so simple...there is a lot more to it.  Another aspect of FINISHING means I need to really strive to finish my workouts, as written by my coach.  I'm not horrible at this (at least I don't think I am...but maybe my coach would tell you differently)...but I can always do better.  The finish line comes from the little bit of work put forth every day.  This year I will also work harder to finish my workouts.

But that still isn't the full answer.  I didn't pick FINISH just because of triathlon.  I was thinking about this yesterday.  I did my annual fundraising swim at 100x100s...pretty much you swim as much as you can in 3 hours.  Back and forth, back and forth, in a 25 yard pool for three hours gives you plenty of time to get lost in your head.  So I was thinking about my word - at least for part of the time.

In real life, I am a chronically bad finisher.  At home, I have unfinished projects.  At work, I have unfinished projects.  I suffer from some sort of "ooh, look - a shiny squirrel" syndrome.  I am all excited to start a project.  I work on it for a while.  Then something else looks more interesting.  This isn't to say I never finish projects - there are a lot of things I get done because the end is easy to see or because I know the "reward" of the end is worth getting over the hump.  But projects that have a more nebulous finish line or that have uncertainty (or worse, more work) at the finish line are harder for me to finish.

Now races, those are easier, right?  Because the finish line is pretty well marked (at least usually) and after you finish a race, you get a medal.  You eat fun food and maybe drink a few beers.  You take a few days or so off, depending on the race.  Plus, at least in my experience, you're only participating in one race at a time.

And think about the end of a race.  I am usually so jazzed to see the finish line that I can put aside the hurts and the "don't wannas" and everything that has bogged me down in the last however many miles and run.  HARD.  Because the finish.  Maybe my life projects need to be more like racing?

This year I will strive to finish my races and my projects.  Instead of getting weary as the finish line approaches (or doesn't), I will kick it into gear.  When I finish a race, I will accept my medal proudly.  When I finish a project, I will give myself a small reward.  Whether I finish a race or a project, I will kick back with some fun food and a few beers...and I will not think about the next project or race for a few days.

2017 will be the year of FINISH.  I can't wait!