11:30 and still doing lunges

My poor (but dear) husband watched me sweat my ass off in front of the TV tonight, on the trainer, draining two Ironman brand water bottles of water....cheering me on. What a sweetie. THEN, as I was printing my strength training workout from the computer, he got ready for bed, and innocently said: "Ok, I am going to bed, you coming?" Uh, NO. "What?" I still have 40 minutes of a leg workout to do. "Seriously?" Uhn huh, quite. "You know what?" I'm fucking crazy? "Besides that." No, what? "You are amazing. You're going to finish IM in 13 hours I bet."

Now how can you resist that?

But there is a point here. It is MUCH easier to watch someone train for IM, than to do the training. It is much easier to have confidence for someone doing IM than it is for me to have confidence in doing IM. For those who look IN on the training, it seems like a lot--and a lot must be good, right? Maybe. Can't tell until the race.

But it IS interesting to ponder why this is so. Eric watches me sacrifice time, sleep, money, sanity, relaxation, pretty much everything....and that gives him a lot of confidence in me. The reality of the situation, though, is that I could barely finish. I CERTAINLY hope this is not the case.....but I'm just a very average person doing a very unaverage event, with a lot of other very exceptional people.

Don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to be negative. I bust my ass day in and day out like everyone else. But the reality of the situation is that I look at the finishing times at the Boulder Long Course last year, and I am going to be in the bottom percent. It's a bit frustrating in some ways. In other ways I'm okay with it--this is my FIRST year of long distance racing. That has to count for something. But being in the bottom percentage reminds me that while I am BUSTING MY ASS day in and day out...I am still at the bottom. :) Killing myself to be in the bottom is better than never being in the race to begin with though.....right? Then part of me is like "who gives a shit what percent you are in? It's your race. If you finish, you win. Period. Run your own damn race."

I was swimming very recently. 8x300 yd intervals. 100-sprint, 100-fast race pace, 100-recovery. Seriously--thought I wasn't going to make the sprints. 25 yds in and my body was already out of oxygen. Quickly went on a fucked up mental trip. I can't do this. This is too hard. Why would anyone want to do this to themselves? I'm not a sprinter. Who cares how fast I take off from the starting line. I'm a long slow distance person. BLAH, BLAH, FUCKING BLAH......I was miserable.

When I started the workout I took 8 pennies and 2 dimes. One dime on the concrete. Under the dime, I made two rows of four pennies vertical. At the bottom I put another dime. Dimes are warmup sets and pennies are intervals. I am lost without a system. So as I am swimming, feeling miserable and negative, I look at ALL of the pennies left at my lane end(in my mind), and feel even worse. I AM NEVER GOING TO FINISH THIS!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO? SEVEN MORE OF THESE? INTOLERABLE!

After the initial sprint and 75 yards into the "race" pace, I started to feel better. Ok, so just the first half of these intervals suck ass. Can I make it through the first half? I was going to have to come up with a game plan, quickly.

Molly has a wonderful coach, Elizabeth, who wrote an amazing article on women and confidence. I keep it in my planner and read it often. I am absolutely addicited to her article. When my workouts get hard, I think of an analogy she used---a squirrel---fucking fearless--getting it's nuts. She says to get in the pool, talk shit to yourself, and the clock will validate that you totally suck. Get in the pool and think positive, and the clock will validate that you kick ass!

My first strategy on #2 300 yd interval was to fill my head with the word "positive"...repeating it over and over, leaving no room for negativity to creep in and fuck up my swim. It worked pretty well, but took a lot of energy--because I KNEW the negativity was in there--it was just being drowned out. BUT it worked. The sprint was better. #3 and on I tried different approaches. One time I said all positive affirmations to myself: "You are strong, you are tough, you are smart, you are beautiful, you can do this, you've got this, this is good, etc". Another time I thought of the squirrel--and said "squirrel" the entire 100 yds. I even laughed, thinking of the fearless squirrel. Towards the last half of the set, I would repeat the thought of crossing the finish line at IM, hearing my name announced--"Brandy Cohen--YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!" In my mind I related the finish of the race to a excellent swim, and it made the sets fly by. I had to talk myself IN to making the sets be the best that I could give. "Pete wouldn't give me this unless I needed it. This is going to help me be a faster swimmer. I am going to be in better shape because of this. There are other people out there not training as hard as I am. There are people who are more dedicated than I am, and I need to step up. It's better to put in the pain now, to be stronger later. It's not always going to feel like this--just now because I am getting stronger. EVery little bit counts...' and so on, and so on, and so on.

I survived that workout and masochistically ASKED for MORE like it from Pete.

We are all very spoiled. How often do we truly do stuff we don't want to do, besides work? Not very often if you think hard. Ironman training on the other hand forces us to do an array of things we may not want to do--get up early, stay up late, miss parties, miss sleep, miss vacations, do workouts we don't want to do when we don't want to workout, etc. There is no stopping. There is no making up for lost workouts. It's now or never. WE DO WHAT IT TAKES TO GET IT DONE EVEN WHEN WE DONT WANT TO DO IT. We are faced with our spoiled-ness daily, and we turn our backs on giving up.

Iwant to congratulate myself and all of you for STICKING WITH IT--especially when it's hard, especially when you are tired and burned out, and would rather be sitting on your ass, watching cartoons, eating a bowl of ice cream with sprinkles. I still eat the ice cream, but not sit on my ass very much.

This training is time consuming, stressful, hard, but it is so rewarding. Look how far you have come. Really take time to look at what you are accomplishing. Who else in their right mind would have to do a 60 mile ride and get excited? Who else would consider a 60 mile ride a WORKOUT and not complete torture???!!

I am proud to be a part of such an amazing, awe-inspiring, dedicated, rish taking, limit breaking group of motivated, adventure seeking individuals. It is through our shared suffering, sacrifices, and ultimate joy of this sport that we are bonded. We are truly unique and special in our own right.

Again, I am so happy to be here, with you. Taking this journey with others like you makes it so much better.

It's late....12:18am, and I have to get up to go into work early, so I can go to my bike fit appointment on time tomorrow.

Remember--we are incredibly lucky to be able to do what we LOVE--even on the days we fucking HATE it. :) In the end, we are all triathlon addicts and we just have to accept it. :)