Thursday
Apr212011
Getting Started
Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 10:44AM Today's post is an article written by Brandon Dunson, a ZenTri-coached triathlete in the Dallas area. Thanks, Brandon!
Bridging the gap from talking to walking.
If you are looking for a reason to put a workout off for a day or two, which turns into a week or two, you don’t have to look very hard. Anyone can see that it is hot outside this time of year, not to mention I need new running shoes and some more comfortable shorts. The treadmills at the gym are pretty old, they are always occupied and don’t even have TVs! I would ride my bike but the tires are flat and I’m scared to ride in traffic. If there was a pool in my neighborhood, I would definitely swim more because I don’t have time to drive across town to swim. It gets dark so early and I can’t run in the dark. My ipod battery is dead. I just don’t have time.
I have exhausted every one of these excuses as a way to inhibit myself from becoming what I want to be. Why do I do that to myself? No one forces me to train five days a week - I want to do that. I love the way I feel after a swim, so why do I try so hard to keep myself from feeling better? I don’t have an answer to those questions, but I have found a few things that help me achieve my goals. I’m sure there will be another struggle just around the corner, but there is always a way to climb that hill and learn a little more about preparing for the next one.
As a beginner in the world of running and an infant in the world of triathlon, I remember a time not so long ago that I spent more of my week reading about other people running and training than I did on my own. There were lots of articles describing how elite athletes changed up the monotony of long workouts and how to improve your Ironman swim split by five minutes. When I wasn’t reading about other people’s active lifestyle I was sharing this information with others; not passing them off as my own experiences mind you, just casually talking endurance sports with people who probably wished I would stop talking and start running...away from them.
It was a hard thing to learn...going from talking about training to actually training, not keeping myself from talking to people about things they have no interest in (I try to do that with a captive audience). One of the hardest things to do was commit to an event and pay the registration fee. I was at constant deliberation with myself about my ability to complete a race. I really wanted to run a 5k, get a t-shirt and finishers medal but with my sporadic training who knew if I could get through it?
I was running, or so I thought. I was traveling distances at a pace faster than a walk, although I’m not sure calling it a "run" was an accurate statement; It was more of a half mile sprint/bonk/injury festival. With all of the reading I was doing, I was not gaining the information that I needed the most - how to start training. I was reading articles about athletes with 10 to 20 years of experience, this in NO way helped my weekly pain-a-thon turn into proper training.
I needed to realize and accept where I was in the process of achieving my goals. Reading tips from professional athletes about running a 100 mile race taught me nothing about finishing a 5k.
I decided that I needed a structured workout schedule. With my limited knowledge of Excel and a little determination, I scoured the internet for free beginner triathlon training plans. After a week or so of diligence I seemed to have pieced together what seemed to be a fool-proof plan to go from almost running a 5k to finishing an Olympic distance triathlon. It was a bullet-proof plan and it worked out! ...For almost a full week. There were a few problems with this plan: The first was plasticity; I did not know how to adjust a training plan to accommodate my ability or recovery time from day to day. If I missed a workout or cut one short I would try and make it up sometime that week without looking at the cause of the problem, or whether the workout should have been in my training plan to begin with. The second was accountability. Accountability is the motivator for my personal training. In my mind, if no one knows that I am supposed to go for a swim today then no one will know if I skip it. I found ways to hold myself accountable to other people, whether they knew it or not was irrelevant. I would join online challenges that required me to upload workouts logged on my wrist-top computer. I got into the habit of posting workouts on various social networking sites. I would discuss with friends and co-workers the workouts that I had done rather than workouts I had read about. After a while people started asking me about my latest workout. The last thing I wanted was to tell them there wasn’t a latest workout.
When I got to the point where it was no longer "news" to those that I shared workouts with I needed something to push me a little further. I searched my immediate social circle for someone to talk shop with about triathlon training, but could not find anyone who was versed on the subject. This was actually my attempt at getting a bit of free coaching as I knew some one-on-one knowledge specific to my situation and training goals would most certainly help me reach the next level of my training.
Eventually I did hire a coach and it has improved my training more so than the addition of anything else. For me, personal accountability is the motivation I need to accomplish the training goals that I have for myself. Sometimes I need a push or don’t know how to get from point A to point B in the most effective way and that is where a one-on-one coach is needed in my training.
A few years ago I overheard someone giving excuses to a friend, explaining why she had not quit smoking. Although she knew it was bad for her health and really wanted to quit, she had yet to do so. When she finished speaking, her friend said only this: “When is RIGHT NOW going to be the RIGHT TIME?” I thought that was extremely powerful and ask myself that very question when I have my own list of excuses.
I have exhausted every one of these excuses as a way to inhibit myself from becoming what I want to be. Why do I do that to myself? No one forces me to train five days a week - I want to do that. I love the way I feel after a swim, so why do I try so hard to keep myself from feeling better? I don’t have an answer to those questions, but I have found a few things that help me achieve my goals. I’m sure there will be another struggle just around the corner, but there is always a way to climb that hill and learn a little more about preparing for the next one.
As a beginner in the world of running and an infant in the world of triathlon, I remember a time not so long ago that I spent more of my week reading about other people running and training than I did on my own. There were lots of articles describing how elite athletes changed up the monotony of long workouts and how to improve your Ironman swim split by five minutes. When I wasn’t reading about other people’s active lifestyle I was sharing this information with others; not passing them off as my own experiences mind you, just casually talking endurance sports with people who probably wished I would stop talking and start running...away from them.
It was a hard thing to learn...going from talking about training to actually training, not keeping myself from talking to people about things they have no interest in (I try to do that with a captive audience). One of the hardest things to do was commit to an event and pay the registration fee. I was at constant deliberation with myself about my ability to complete a race. I really wanted to run a 5k, get a t-shirt and finishers medal but with my sporadic training who knew if I could get through it?
I was running, or so I thought. I was traveling distances at a pace faster than a walk, although I’m not sure calling it a "run" was an accurate statement; It was more of a half mile sprint/bonk/injury festival. With all of the reading I was doing, I was not gaining the information that I needed the most - how to start training. I was reading articles about athletes with 10 to 20 years of experience, this in NO way helped my weekly pain-a-thon turn into proper training.
I needed to realize and accept where I was in the process of achieving my goals. Reading tips from professional athletes about running a 100 mile race taught me nothing about finishing a 5k.
I decided that I needed a structured workout schedule. With my limited knowledge of Excel and a little determination, I scoured the internet for free beginner triathlon training plans. After a week or so of diligence I seemed to have pieced together what seemed to be a fool-proof plan to go from almost running a 5k to finishing an Olympic distance triathlon. It was a bullet-proof plan and it worked out! ...For almost a full week. There were a few problems with this plan: The first was plasticity; I did not know how to adjust a training plan to accommodate my ability or recovery time from day to day. If I missed a workout or cut one short I would try and make it up sometime that week without looking at the cause of the problem, or whether the workout should have been in my training plan to begin with. The second was accountability. Accountability is the motivator for my personal training. In my mind, if no one knows that I am supposed to go for a swim today then no one will know if I skip it. I found ways to hold myself accountable to other people, whether they knew it or not was irrelevant. I would join online challenges that required me to upload workouts logged on my wrist-top computer. I got into the habit of posting workouts on various social networking sites. I would discuss with friends and co-workers the workouts that I had done rather than workouts I had read about. After a while people started asking me about my latest workout. The last thing I wanted was to tell them there wasn’t a latest workout.
When I got to the point where it was no longer "news" to those that I shared workouts with I needed something to push me a little further. I searched my immediate social circle for someone to talk shop with about triathlon training, but could not find anyone who was versed on the subject. This was actually my attempt at getting a bit of free coaching as I knew some one-on-one knowledge specific to my situation and training goals would most certainly help me reach the next level of my training.
Eventually I did hire a coach and it has improved my training more so than the addition of anything else. For me, personal accountability is the motivation I need to accomplish the training goals that I have for myself. Sometimes I need a push or don’t know how to get from point A to point B in the most effective way and that is where a one-on-one coach is needed in my training.
A few years ago I overheard someone giving excuses to a friend, explaining why she had not quit smoking. Although she knew it was bad for her health and really wanted to quit, she had yet to do so. When she finished speaking, her friend said only this: “When is RIGHT NOW going to be the RIGHT TIME?” I thought that was extremely powerful and ask myself that very question when I have my own list of excuses.
Thanks for the insight, Brandon! If you would like to post your own thoughts on triathlon or Zen on ZenTri, send an email to texafornia at gmail dot com. :)
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