I've been thinking a lot about motivation, or lack thereof, after reading this post that Tim Luchinske wrote just after Christmas.
Tim recounts a day when Chuckie V and he were biking when...but I'll let him tell the story:
"A few years back Chuck and I were standing on the side of the road out by Carter Lake eating.. we saw two fairly fit cyclists fly by obviously putting in an effort.. trading pulls on the front. I looked at Chuck and said "We should catch those guys".. He replied "Yep.. let's do it". And neither of us budged. We kept eating our Powerbars and chatting about how nice the weather was and why those goddamn cows were staring us down (remind me to tell the story of Chuck mooning a cow on a run). After a while we slowly climbed back on our bikes and spun up to speed.. got loose.. and caught the two cyclists after not too long. They jumped (as roadies do) and got on our wheels.. and soon faded off the back, the pace too fast, as Chuck and I rolled back to town at an effort that would that still allow us to run a quick marathon.
It was, and still is, looking back at that day that I think defines why I exercise. As those two cyclists rode by, and as we decided to catch them, and as neither of us felt the need to rush.. it's that feeling of fitness and confidence that we gain from training... training harder and more and farther and harder and faster.
On days when you don't want to go out the door.. think that there will come a day when someone will go by you and you will either wish you could catch them.. or you will go ahead and finish your Powerbar and KNOW that you will still catch them."
Tim uses this story to as a way to motivate himself to get out on those cold Boulder mornings. I suspect if you were to ask him he'd say that this is certainly one of the benefit of being fit....very fit.
The problem from an everyman tri point of view is that I just don't really get it, and I suppose that really is the difference between the pro's and myself.
Let me explain.
The typical pro triathlete may Swim 18-22K, Bike 300-500K, Run 50-80K....a WEEK!
Just think about those numbers for a second...15 miles of swimming not a month, not a year, not even a long summer...but a week. How long would that take you?
All I can think of when I see weekly numbers like that is "that's a hell of a lot of work to be able to munch your PowerBar a few minutes longer."
Let's assume that you are working out 5 hours a week and you decide to get a bit more serious about your training so you double the time spent on swimming, cycling, and running to 10 hours a week.
If you use your head, and you do it in a very efficient way, you may actually get 25 percent faster when you race.
Now you decide to get even more serious so you double your training time again. But chances are that you won't get another 25 percent faster. In fact you may not get faster, but you will certainly increase your chances of getting injured.
Now let's up that training time to 30 hours a week. This may seem like a lot but it really isn't if you are looking at a sub 11 hour Ironman time.
Will 30 hours make you 75 percent faster?
No way!
But it will certainly buy you those extra minutes to munch your PowerBar, but frankly that's what I don't get.
I think of all the things that I could be doing with 30 hours a week of my life, and I just can't get all that excited about spending it in the pool, on the bike, or on a long run.
But than again I'm not a pro, and I'm certainly not a gifted endurance athlete.
I think if I had the endurance gift I would certainly be much more likely to want to develop it as much as possible. Like a great violinist or pianist, I would want to see how good I could be.
Alas I'm not gifted so I'm not so curious.
But what I am curious about is why so many seemingly normal athletes bow at the feet of the God of triathlon?
It does amaze me that so many everyday athletes would let triathlon (she is a very jealous mistress after all) get between them and their families, or their careers, or their God, or their car, or their cat, or their ice cream, or their television, or their holidays, or their shopping, or their education, or their sleep, or their Sudoku or their friends, or their....
Let's be honest here and admit that many of us will think nothing of spending hours upon hours in the solitary pursuit of a few minutes on race day.
I guess it is easy to get caught up in the sport especially if you have a bit of race success. I know I did this summer when I worked very hard to win my age and fat group at the Chicago Triathlon.
In the end all I got out the victory was a battle with the race director about if I had weighed in or not before the race. This race day debate certainly made me look at my priorities in a new light.
For me triathlon will always be about a healthy lifestyle balanced with a healthy family and professional life.
We may all find that balance (let's call it the PowerBar Paradox) in different ways, but every-so-often I have to do a reality check and just wonder out loud about how we go about this.
So thanks for listening.
But you'll have to excuse me as I'm tired now and I have to get up early to go for my Monday morning masters swim ;-)