Worth the Wait

There's nothing like the response I get from civilians (aka: non-triathletes) when I tell them what time I get up to train. Without fail, they immediately spit my answer back at me out of sheer disbelief, "4:30 in the MORNING?!" Following my autopilot confirmation, they mentally categorize me under types of people they cannot identify with, alongside the likes of schizophrenics, the opposite gender, Communists, cat hoarders and the over-medicated to name a few. Feels great. Training is like anything else for which you develop a passion: you make room for it in your life. I don’t wake up singing The Sound of Music, but it only takes a couple of weeks for your body to adjust to 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls.

On that note, there are days when the alarm BEEPING makes me second-guess whether or not the civilians are right about me belonging to a group of crazies. The more seasoned you are as an athlete, the better you get at knowing when to push through the occasional sluggish morning or when to rest because your body is over trained. Let’s put it this way--I’m still learning. Case in point was last Monday...the pillow impressions on my face were reminiscent of a French Bulldog because I woke up in the same position I laid my head down to rest the night before. But hey, it’s nothing a 3000-yard swim can’t iron out. So I squeezed on a swim cap, which actually pulled my face back to normal for me to wear goggles and I flopped into the pool. My body wasn’t having it. It was quite like when a computer freezes...everything you need to function is in front of you but entirely inaccessible and all you see is that little ANNOYING hourglass icon turning over and over again indicating the need for more time to process. As Scott says, “I had nothin’” so I held onto the end of the line and ultimately skipped 50 yards for every 200 my fellow (albeit rested) athletes completed.

The BEEPING didn’t sound any better the next day, but I went to the group spin nonetheless (I catch on quick). It’s easier to push through a spin class than it is in the pool, but my heart rate hovered around 10 beats higher than it usually does, further proving the point that I needed some zzz's. By Wednesday morning, I finally opted for rest and sanity--12 glorious hours of sleep in one night and an extra day off that week. By giving my system enough time to process the training, I'm able function forward. And the only time I have to consider is how to beat the 16 minutes and 21 seconds it took me to complete a loop around Central Park during last Thursday's cycling time trial...must hit sub 16!