For new readers

To get an idea of what I'm trying to do and why I think it's possible, check out the following entries, they'll help get you up to speed.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

eating fish, post race depression, and what's next

First the fish.  I've got a freezer full of Northern that my wife won't eat, but I hate wasting food and consider fish to be good for me, so wanted to find a way to make it taste good.  After a quick bit of web research I found out about boiling it in 7-up to make 'poor man's lobster' which turned out pretty good (but not good enough, apparently, as I ended up eating almost all of it by myself).  Although I highly recommend the recipe, thats not really what i'm trying to get at, so before i digress too much, i'll get back to point:  the common connotation of "fishy".

Even among people who consider fish to be healthy, beneficial, and yummy, the word 'fishy' carries a negative connotation.  it's intriguing to me that to describe something (fish) that has the positive qualities mentioned as being more like itself (fishy), would suddenly take on a negative aspect.  For the few people out there who read my blog, i challenge you to come up with another example of this.  I'm not saying they don't exist, just that i'm interested and don't have the time to do the thinking myself.  So get to it!

Second the depression.  I'm mostly over it now, but this last week i've suffered a bit of post race depression.   All the energy and motivation and created importance that becomes attached to and necessitated by such an endurance event vanishes within a day or so of the race end.  I tried to mitigate this effect by finding people to tell my story to, writing a trip report, and putting my photos to music, but such efforts only slow the loss slightly.  This phenomenon of PRD, is, of course, why my brother continues to live the life he does (not that i blame him), as the best (and only) real cure is to have a string of big events so closely spaced temporally that as soon as one ends you've gotta jump immediately into the active planning for the next one.  Alas, this is not a possibility for me.  One more reason why the number of people who are simultaneously endurance athletes/adventurers and 'normal' folk (job, family, etc) is exceedingly small.  Who willingly chooses a route that knowingly leads periodically through slumps and feelings of purposelessness?  After all, by attempting to exist in both paradigms, I effectively negate my ability to convincingly rationalize either as being meaningful!  So it goes.

And now, of course, i need to decide what is next, which in lieu of being depressed i've committed some thought too.  i'm a schedule freak and i like things to be nice and orderly (1 adventure every 10 weeks or something) but these constraints are too limiting on the rest of my life so i'm forced into some level of flexibility.  Given that I'm committed to the IM in early November (which, by the way, i was second guessing as i suffered through the arrowhead, but thats to be expected), will try to do the third installment of my summer adventure (toomuchfun expeditions) sometime in July, and have a long standing family gathering/race (Chippewa triathlon) in early june, that really only leaves time for one trip in the spring, which is difficult because of school and the races that i'm planning.

So i'm thinking i'll drop into a maintenance phase for about a month and add some swimming and climbing to keep things fresh (i'll need the shoulder strength for the Chippewa tri and need climbing strength for TMF expedition).  In mid march i'll do a build cycle focused on biking (my weakest triathlon discipline) and drop down to once a week for climbing and swimming.  This'll culminate with a bike race of some sort to test my newfound speed!  Then i'll do another build cycle, this time focusing on paddling (Chippewa) - leading to that race.  After this it'll only be about four weeks until TMF, some of which will likely be family vacation, so it'll be easiest to focus on running and try to get to the climbing gym at least once a week (fingers crossed).  After recovering from TMF i'll take a few weeks to get back up to where i want to be (base) to launch my IM training from, which i'll begin in earnest the last couple of weeks in august (10 week cycle).  Dave, if you read this, i plan on doing the same workouts as you during this cycle, so we can commiserate.

So thats the plan!  Go team Gear Junkie, Go!  Follow them here.

No comments:

Post a Comment