Quitting....

Well, I'm back at Panorama and I've decided that's when I blog. I've had a few complaints about my lack of blogging (Kelly... you know who I'm talking to), so I'm finally sitting down to get it done.

I'm guessing that the title of this post... " Quitting"... seems a bit odd for those of you who know me. It's not something I talk about, think about, aspire to do. It's not in my "framework" as a general rule. I think that's why I'm blogging about it.

I was at the pool on Monday of this week. There was a bit of a planned but unplanned group of tri geeks taking up one lane in the pool. Four men, all very good (aka: much better than me) swimmers, but I took the challenge and hopped in. Chris, Jonathon, Jaimie and Ross... thank you for the 43 min of torture.

The workout was 50's on a minute. 43 of them to be exact. It was a pyramid where we did 1 hard/2 easy, 2 hard / 2 easy etc. It built to 5 hard / 2 easy, then went back down. The boys were getting more rest than me, but I was THRILLED with my splits as I was consistent throughout and able to hold 40 - 41 second 50's. An EPIC swim for me. Stroke mechanics went out the door; this was survival. I didn't quit! I pushed through and finished the workout. It was so hard and I was extremely thankful it was over...

Until it wasn't.

So, Ross and Jon get out leaving Jaimie, Chris and I in the pool. "Splashy Boy 1 and Splashy Boy 2" banter back and forth deciding how we should end this workout. (Nicknames given by a nice lady who lane swims a lot.) They decide we should do 2 x 100m hard on 2:15. Tons of rest. It will be fine. I should have said no, but I'm weak and thought I could get through.

The first 100 I finish in 1:29. I was shocked I pulled that out since my arms were no longer attached to my body and without feeling! We rest, and head off on the second 100. I complete my first 50, push off the wall only to meet Chris coming in to finish his 100 as I hit the flags. (He swims about a 1:07 - 1:10 100 so he's WAY faster than me. I like to call him "Super Human Freak"... with love of course:) When he went by me something snapped and I quit. Yup... I put my feet down, and just quit. It wasn't even a conscious decision. It just happened. The stupid thing is I wasn't even THAT pissed off at myself. I just quit. It was over, done with, no more, nada... the workout complete. A few easy 25's to cool down and home I went.

The next morning I was at the track doing speed work at 6:30 am. An ungodly hour I might add... but that's when Pete could run. We were doing 6 x 3 min hard with 2 min easy. It was hard, and we were running faster than I anticipated we would. I was really struggling this week with energy. The weeks of volume and intensity really seemed to be catching up with me. Somehow though, this workout was coming together.

On the 4th interval, something happened in my brain. I was struggling, and my reference point for feeling crappy flashed back to that moment at the pool when I put my feet down and quit. I now knew that to make the pain stop, I simply had to stop moving, and the discomfort instantly goes away. It works... I've done it. I could quit.

This is the lesson. It took every part of my being to push through and finish that interval. I knew then that quitting one time re-set my tolerance for training discomfort, and gave me permission to do it again. This is BAD with a capital "B". I am not a professional athlete, but I train hard and take a lot of pride in what I've accomplished in the sport of triathlon through hard work and commitment to training. Quitting is not what I'm about.

So, I pushed through the 4th interval, and went on to have a good 5th and a stellar 6th. The workout was done and the lesson was learned.

When we race, we make reference to past training sessions. In an ideal world we should find examples that inspire us to push through moments of mental lapse when our brain tells us to back off and take a break. We want to stop moving, but we don't. What I learned from this week is that quitting once makes it tempting to quit again. The choice to quit in that 4th interval was a much more appealing choice than running to finish what I started. In the end, I got the job done and more important than the fitness gained from a hard workout, was the lesson learned about quitting.

I am not a quitter... I was once, but not anymore. Have a great day!