Ironman training started on November 1st. I started fretting about the race roughly on November 2nd.
So as excited as I am to take on the whole 140.6 miles in Ironman Coeur d’Alene on June 23, 2013, I’m also concerned. While the distance of the day has me a wee bit worried, I know, with the proper training and attitude, I can definitely survive the day.
What I’m not sure I can survive is the training.
My body is as drawn to injury as I am to peppermint ice cream this time of year. I think about my IT band, and it tightens up. I lie on my pillow wrong, and my neck aches for days. I stretch out my tight hamstring, and the arch of my foot feels paralyzed on my next run.
Last Wednesday, I felt like I had total body arthritis. Seriously, I could not name a joint that wasn’t angry. (O.K., maybe my pinky knuckles, but I was so consumed with how much my back, shoulders, hips, and knees ached, I couldn’t pay attention.) As is my typical response, I freaked. How am I supposed to do an Ironman when I can’t even move today? What was I on when I signed up? Who do I think I am kidding?
After I shed some tears, I decided I would not do my designated swim that morning, and instead would only go to Pilates. Pilates, with its intense focus and realignment abilities, has been a savior for me over the past three years, but I’ve slacked off recently; my stringent two times a week downsized to once a week, and sometimes none at all if I am traveling.
When I got to class, I told Ann, an empathetic teacher I adore, of my IM ambitions and how much I hurt. I asked her to please keep an extra eye on me in class today and moving forward; anything I could do better, I wanted her to mention.
She talked me off my ledge and then said something so true and crushing, it hurt to hear. “You force things, Dimity,” she said, gently, “You don’t allow them to happen.” In my body, that means I thrust my shoulders back and down when I “stand up straight”; it means I forget to breathe when I’m trying a tough move; it means my muscles are either super engaged, or they’re hanging out; it means I clinch and get rigid and contort my body to get to the correct position, even if I how I get there is wrong.
(Or put a much simpler way, it means this: I’m a control freak, even when it comes to my own body I already inherently control.)
But here’s the thing: I can’t force 140.6 miles. I can’t forget to breathe through 140.6 miles. I can’t be rigid or clinch through 140.6 miles. And I know I can’t handle the training for 140.6 miles if I don’t chill and do my best to let there be grey in my black-and-white body.
I feel ridiculous typing that I have to allow myself to get to Coeur d’Alene, one of the hardest things I’ll ever do physically, because I feel like I have to sweat and strive to get there. Then again, I’m one of those people who is awful at directions. If I’m behind the wheel and think I should take a left, the place I’m looking for is, 99.9% of the time, to the right. If I think I have to grit out my training, I really need to allow it.
I left Ann’s class standing at least an inch taller, and mentally miles better.
I woke up on Thursday morning, and was a new woman physically. I had a great run with just a few minor aches. As I ran along, I told myself, how you feel one day doesn’t mean you’re going to feel that way tomorrow. Stop with the drama, in other words, because you’re only going to wear yourself out prematurely. Allow this journey to unfold as it naturally will.
I decided that I needed to remind myself of that daily, so I’ve made two notes that I hoped would hang on my bathroom mirror with my favorite magnets ever. They don’t stick there–and I wasn’t going to force the issue with duct tape–but they do on the light fixtures next to the mirrors. As I get up and stuff my body into my workout clothes every morning, I’ll be reminded of the way I’ll get to Idaho.
Do you know the way to Coeur d’Alene?
Do you have a message to yourself taped or stuck in an important place? Care to share?
The difference between good and great is just a little extra effort. :)
Dimity,
I think these are messages we all need to post somewhere, about all of life’s journeys. Drama is too much energy and we always get there, force need not apply. Kudos to you for seeking out support and using the resources around you. BTW I just received the magnet too, and I love it.
Dimity,
Thank you for the personal post. I feel better about my personal drama that I create now too. I signed up for IMFL, likely in haste, and now have near-panic attack at the thought of this feat that lies nearly one year away. I am going to keep breathing, and gain strength through you. Please keep us posted on your IM training! So proud of you!
Tricia
(@catshoes)
Wow, we are a little too much alike for sure. I could have written that about being a control freak and pilates being a life saver. But my goal is an olympic distance tri in June. I just looked at the one a friend recommended today and the self doubt and hyperventilating already started. I’ll be following your ironman training. thanks for your honesty and inspiration!
Best wishes to you in your training, Dimity! I think your feelings, physical and mental, are totally normal. Again I’m struck by how much the mental affects the physical — something I need to keep in mind as I try to recover from a recent race and gear up for the next one. You are stressing because you care, and that means you’ll put your all into it and do well. If you haven’t read Chrissie Wellington’s “A Life Without Limits” now would be a good time. I want to read it again soon, it was so inspiring.
This reminds me, once again, of my favorite Ken Chlouber quote, “You’re better than you think you are and you can do more than you think you can do.”
I read your post and all I could think of was, “OMG that’s me.” It just hit me that all lot of times I feel that way when training for something and when I do I end up getting injured. The few times, can count them on one hand, that I’ve known that my training was going to be lackluster my attitude changed and I came out better all around. I was training for the Goofy at Disney and had just started my first semester at college, after a 20 year absence. It was hard staying up late to study after the kids went to bed and trying to get up to meet my running partners to run a 4:00 am. I missed runs, I worried, I worried some more. Stress from school and training were really getting to me so I made a decision. I really wanted to do both. I had wanted to do this race FOREVER and finally found someone crazy enough to do it with me and who understood my schedule. SO I just decided it was going to be fun. I was going to have fun. Didn’t care anymore how fast I ran or when I finished. I was just going to finish the 1/2 and the full and that was that. I also was focused on the fact that as slow as I thought I was going to be by the time I got to Epcot they’d be selling liquor/beer and in France I was going to stop and get champagne! Well after I let it all go and decided it was going to be a party things got better. Still some stress but not like before. Got through the training with no injuries. Got thru the half feeling great. We decided that would that would be an easy day and we’d take pictures along the way with the characters. The marathon the next day was my strongest EVER. I felt amazing every single mile. For once in my running life the stars had aligned and when I finished I felt like I could still keep running. I believe it was because I just kept reminding myself that it was just a big party. I ended up with a 20 minute PR that day!!! OH and for once in my life I actually was running fast, we got to Epcot an hour before they could sell liquor so didn’t get my champagne. We did go back the next day though to get and toast our accomplishments. Sorry so long but too add to this, I’ve come to believe that my injuries are mental. Not all but some. They are my mental thoughts/wounds that manifest themselves in other ways. Now if I could just figure out a way to keep on top of them I’d be good. Good luck on your training! …and remember as Christoper Robin said to Pooh, “Promise me you’ll always remember. You’re braver than you believer, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
Way to go Dimity! One step at a time, breath and you will be there with our other FB friend SwimBikeMom. In Jan I start my adventure to do IM Tremblant in 2015 for my 50th birthday, yes a 2 year plan because that is how I roll, slowly. I have a plan and I trust it to get me there so trust your plan and believe in your strength and you will be great. As a newbie, I look forward to you sharing your journey.
I hear you Dimity! I’ve taped the following quote to my work computer (red, bold faced type): “That voice in your head that says you can’t do this? She’s a liar.” I think I got it from this site earlier this year…
Wow, I do exactly the same thing Dimity. I even managed to get injured (and wound up in an aircast for 6 weeks) participating in a Chi Running workshop because I was forcing the heel lift so hard. Who does that? I don’t have any inspirational messages taped to my mirror, just training plans, so maybe I will borrow yours!
I have a RoadId and I have the quote “Life’s a journey…” on it. It was a quote I read when I was a freshman in college. The entire quote goes, “Life’s a journey, are you packed?” That quote has always been like a motto to me. Life has its ups and downs and even though I have not always been “packed” for all the journeys, I have survived and learned from them. Now at 36 I can appreciate my past and all the good and bad. They have created the woman I am today…a mom, a partner, a vice president, a friend, a woman, a runner.
Dimity, look at this training as a journey and pack what you will need to get to your desired destination. Good luck! Can’t wait to read about your journey.
GREAT post Dimity! Your words spoke to my soul. Good luck – you.can.do.this!
There are so many posts that I connect with on this blog, but THIS is something that hit home. I recently watched Brene Brown’s TED talk on shame. (which sounds like a big word, but it’s not) It’s become my battle cry, and it’s worth the 17 minutes to watch it. Thank you for opening up and showing all of us that we aren’t alone. You are enough. You got this girl!
Oh Dimity I can so relate to this post. I find I often have to remind myself to let go and trust in the journey – not an easy thing for a Type A personality like myself. I had these words taped up during my last training cycle:
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” – MLK
Helps remind me to breathe and take it a day at a time.
Love this post! Can’t wait to keep hearing about your journey. I keep a “workout binder” that I keep my workout schedule in and a ton of different workouts I can do at home (cardio, plyo, weights, etc). I’ve been looking for some quotes to add to the pages. I think I’ll have to use some of yours!
Great post!
Dimity – do you go to a reformer or mat class? Pilates sounds awesome
Dimity, thank you for always putting yourself out there, and for sharing with all of us. As most have shared, we all need a reminder to ‘allow’. The two mantra’s that have helped me the most on the trail since I started running and while losing weight are “persistence not perfection” and “I surrender”…some days I start out on the trail all knotted up, wanting my body to do something it is not ready to do, on those days I repeat “I surrender” over and over and over until I find my shoulders relax and my mind drift away from what my expectations were and instead appreciate where I’m at.
Hi Dimity,
The race is in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. The race/city is misspelled throughout the post. Growing up in a city named Creve Coeur, french for “broken heart”, the spelling is a sensitive subject for the locals.
Thanks, Susan. fixing it now…
Dimity, you know how I love pilates. In fact this morning our trio had a sub teacher and it was a totally different class: slower, more focused on the breath and stretching. I tried to make more out of a move than I was supposed to – in my head I was trying to make it “harder” – we were doing swan on the reformer. My instructor said to me, “JoAnn, let it be, you’ll get there.” All I could think was, it’s 6 in the morning, this class is expensive, I’m used to my abs burning by now! Where are my sideovers that I love? Wahhhh. And then a few swans later I could feel all the right muscles working. And I thought, alright, I’m there. Throughout the rest of the class I let the simplest sequences build to what they were supposed to be and they were tough in a whole different way. No sideovers this morning, but I did find my core and a little more length in my spine. So, a little patience with the process (the journey) and ourselves and we get to where we’re supposed to be. Let it be, you’ll get there. That’s something I need to remind myself of everyday. xox
My whole last two years of trying to BQ have been a cycle of tamping down drama and dealing with injury, so I understand perfectly where you’re coming from. I’ve been much more mellow this training cycle (my next attempt is in two weeks), and I think the secret is that I’ve let go of the idea that there is a real deadline for this. No one is going to be hurt or disappointed if I don’t do it by a certain date. I’m not going to lose friends or my job. This is supposed to be fun. Setbacks can be part of the fun if you view them with a Mary Poppins “spoonful of sugar” attitude. Moreover, no one ever wrote a book with a linear progression from start to resolution–what a boring book that would be! Odysseus got back to Ithaca, but it took awhile.
I can BQ–and you will get your 140.6! Hopefully we can both do it on the dates we signed up for…but if not….we’ll dust ourselves off and try again.
I totally need one these days…as I feel overextended and full of running self-doubt.
I used to have my college e-mail log-in prompt as a message to myself and it TOTALLY worked: “i am a happy person.” Where can I put that kind of message now, to be seen with such frequency? Thanks for today’s idea!
“Run with your heart, not with your legs” is the wallpaper on my PC at the office, courtesy of the good folks at Lululemon. I love yours too. “Allow, don’t force” is so important. I’m definitely guilty of that.
When I was in high school and running mostly on my own just to try to be less pudgy, I tacked a sign over my bed on the ceiling that said “GET UP AND GO RUN NOW”- it was literally the first thing I saw in the morning and it did work several times. When I went back home to visit the first time with my kids the sign was STILL THERE.( a little math here, I ran my jr and sr year in high school so I was 17 or 18- I had my first child when I was 34 and 2nd when I was 36- so apparently little redecorating had occurred in the interim).
Thanks for the post- as I am embarking on my first ever “training program” for a half and today I had to do 5 miles to start the week which seemed way longer than my usual 3-4 weekday plan. But, I did it! And I hope to stick to the “finish it” plan from TLAM, even though as I was writing it all down on my planner I was wiggling a little nervously in my seat- wow 7 miles as a mid-week run eh, ok..One day at a time. Maybe I do need to make another sign……
Such a wonderful post! The yellow sticky note posted on my bathroom mirror reads “What’s your goal?!?!” I put it there in October 2010 when I was trying to get back on track after having my second child. At that time my goal was to run just twice a week. I kept it there as the following year unfolded and I decided to train for my first marathon. I completed the Portland (Oregon) Marathon in October 2011. I still have the sticky there to remind me to keep at it no matter what intensity my goal is. I haven’t ran in 4 and a 1/2 weeks due to foot surgery to remove a bone spur and it hasn’t been easy on my physically or emotionally. So now I read the note to remind myself of what my goal is once I can run again!
I have taped up on my mirror in bathroom your picture/post from “You Must Be Present To Win” Post- because it reminds me to enjoy where I’m at. Then below it I typed in a line my friend told me: “I like to think life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do about it.” So true!
Wow, I thought you were doing a Half Ironman and was totally impressed with that. Full Ironman….double impressed. You can do it girl! You and “lyle” will do just fine. I think that is what you named your bike. Excited to follow your journey….perhaps there is another book in the making:)
Dimity,
I was soo scared while training for my first full IM. Take it one day at a time and breathe! Don’t let yourself get too emotional or you will be exhausted months before race day. I didn’t tape a reminder to my desk; I ran once a week with a multiple time IM finisher who would always calm my nerves. Good luck and enjoy the journey!
Dimity… Love this post! I just finished my first IM, Florida, and I learned a LOT.
I have some simple advice for you… one day at a time. :-) Do not think about the next year. Think ONLY about today. What is on the plan for today, how are you feeling today, how are you going to execute the plan today, and if needed how are you going to rest today to make sure that tomorrow is another good today?
If you need a sounding board, please feel free to email me. I struggled with myself nearly every step of the way to IMFL, but in the end I had a huge epiphany and my life got so much easier.
The first step is exactly what you are learning now… allow it to happen.
The second step is just as crucial… become flexible and roll with the punches, make changes to the plan to allow you to complete it the best that you can.
The third step is to realize that you are a human and need rest. Fatigue, injury, long training session can result in body breakdown, so err on the side of recovery and rest.
The last step is the best. Know that the training IS the hard part. Ironman, that is the reward!
Excited to follow your journey and if you need any insight or an ear to bend, please contact me.
Love love love this post, Dimity. Completely relate to the “what was I on when I signed up?” line. Laughed out loud. I can appreciate that you are going to go with the flow and allow your training to happen – good on you. You know that we will all work to remind you when we hear a little bit of drama inching into your posts.
You will nail the IM I am sure, and if not, you will learn from it, I have no doubt. You are a resilient badass mother runner (and swimmer, and cycler…. ).
Thanks for your post, as always.
Roz (from downunder)
oh, and I have a note on my fridge that reminds me to dance through life….. makes me feel all whimsical. lol
While I’m not training for an Ironman, this post really resonated with me. Control-freak, forcing things, clenching…these are all me. I will get up and make myself run when I know I might be injured because the workout is on the plan, the plan cannot be flexible, we must follow the plan! One of the
If I can give you any advice for training for your first Ironman is this. Plan on crying. I am not a crier but I cried more during training for Ironman than I ever have. Sometimes for stupid things that where easily remedied and sometimes over more serious things like when I crashed my bike and thought I wasn’t going to race 5 wks before IM. That was a bad week.
But what I learned is we need to trust in our bodies and most important LISTEN. Its ok to take a rest day, its ok to run by how you feel that day and not what the training plan says, its ok to change the plan if it’s not working.
Also remember than nothing stays the same. You will feel like crap sometimes but not forever, you’ll feel like quitting sometimes but not everyday, you feel pain but it’s only temporary. Just keep it moving forward and pressing on. Fast or slow as long as you get across that line in 17 hours you are an Ironman and I will promise you this, NOTHING will feel as amazing as running down that chute to the finish line.
Good luck!
Oh and get monthly massages!! Best money I ever spent!
Dimity,
I enjoyed reading this post. I too am a control freak…at work, home, and with running/training! I try hard not to be, but it’s definitely a work in progress. I put this note up in my bathroom/vanity and kitchen…”GOD is in charge, not ME! Let go and let God run the show” When I read it, its a reminder I’m gonna be OK :)
Go Dimity! It takes a lot of courage and determination to train for a ultimate endurance race like Ironman. I have been pondering a IM70.3 in June…just need a bike upgrade since I’m preeeeety sure my mountain bike won’t cut it!
Dimity –
I completed my first IM in Louisville this past August. I followed a workout plan, but decided if I had to miss a workout I couldn’t worry about it. I put my focus on the end goal. Finishing IMLOU before midnight. On race day, everyone was surprised at how calm I was. I decided I was not going to worry about my race day because there was nothing I could do to change it if I freaked in the swim or got a flat tire. As a result, I had the best day EVER!!! I smiled all day long and did not regret one single moment of my experience. Stay focused on your goals and don’t let a bad day throw you off your plan.