But first... think good thoughts about my friend Marv, who has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and will have surgery on Tuesday to remove it. They do not know if it is malignant, or not, but initially the news appears to be good if having a brain tumor is a good thing.
The past two years, I have enjoyed seeing the Tour of California, especially last year, when they did the ITT to start and we had 2+ hours of pros circling the course in downtown SMF, where you could see them up close. Plus you had the expo and team trailers.
This year, they're circling downtown - like they did 2 years ago - 3x before finishing, and that's fun to watch too, but I'm simply not all that excited. I'll go down, probably buy a ToC jersey, and hang out at the lifestyle expo but if The Blonde weren't dog/housesitting this weekend I'd be at the beach instead. We've had a coolish Spring - lots of cool days and more days with rain (we are actually near normal for rainfall for the season for a change) this Winter/Spring - but its supposed to be in the 80s today and tomorrow.
Having the leg/hip/back/whateveritwas injury has changed my attitude towards competition somewhat over the past year and a half. For a long time, I was really jacked about cycling in particular because I was doing it so much (even though I was doing it poorly) and I figured that working out a lot would make me happier. Well, it made me happier to the extent that I was in good shape, but I have limited athletic ability and racing was not doing much for my self-esteem. It only took me, what, 30-40 races to figure out that I don't really need to race to stay in shape and its a lot more fun - for me - to work out without constantly worrying about prepping for a race or following some training plan (not that, aside from all the running I did to enable myself to finish a marathon, I ever followed any kind of coherent training plan).
In the process of all the racing, though, I did check a lot of things off of the bucket list. Since 2006, I've completed a marathon, a triathlon, a couple of duathlons, a 10 mile trail run, 4 half marathons, century rides, 100K rides, a lot of other rides < 100km in length, a cycling omnium, a few bike ITTs, another handful of run races from 5 miles to 10 miles... a lot of running and spinning, that's for sure.
What I learned is that I have a lot of stamina, and... that's about it. Speed is not my forte physically. Never will be, and that's not particularly important, but it doesn't make much sense to kill myself (and spend a lot of time) training to excel the pissant amount I *can* excel in a racing situation when I can spend the $25-$40 per race on something besides a t-shirt and ill-tasting Gatorade. The comforting part about all of this is I did learn (although I kind of already knew this) that:
1) Any time - and this is ANY - that I attempt a new athletic event - be it a new run distance, type of race, or activity - I'm going to suck at it the first time out, no matter how much I prepare. I'm sure if I got into paintball I'd probably shoot myself more with the damn gun than actually hit anything.
2) However, if I've done the necessary training for an endurance event, if I don't care too much about my finishing time, I will finish. Even injured and in pain. In '85, I was totally unprepared to do a half-marathon; my right ankle died at the 7 mile mark and I limped to the end and even beat the marathon winner by about a minute in a time.
3) Sometimes I'll dredge up a decent performance, and this only happens in running. I actually placed - 3rd - in a 5K - in my Age Group one time. It was a very *small* 5K field, though.
4) Running is really the only activity I am even remotely decent at. Cycling I enjoy more, but, I'm not good at it, and I've lost a lot of the zest I've had for it with the hyper-competitiveness of so many of the riders I encounter on the trails and roads around here.
5) Almost always the local amateur athletes that are good at their given sport, that I've met, are tremendously nice people. I've made some great friends. Its almost always the wanna-bees that don't have the ability to be competitive that are assholes.
What I learned is that I have a lot of stamina, and... that's about it. Speed is not my forte physically. Never will be, and that's not particularly important, but it doesn't make much sense to kill myself (and spend a lot of time) training to excel the pissant amount I *can* excel in a racing situation when I can spend the $25-$40 per race on something besides a t-shirt and ill-tasting Gatorade. The comforting part about all of this is I did learn (although I kind of already knew this) that:
1) Any time - and this is ANY - that I attempt a new athletic event - be it a new run distance, type of race, or activity - I'm going to suck at it the first time out, no matter how much I prepare. I'm sure if I got into paintball I'd probably shoot myself more with the damn gun than actually hit anything.
2) However, if I've done the necessary training for an endurance event, if I don't care too much about my finishing time, I will finish. Even injured and in pain. In '85, I was totally unprepared to do a half-marathon; my right ankle died at the 7 mile mark and I limped to the end and even beat the marathon winner by about a minute in a time.
3) Sometimes I'll dredge up a decent performance, and this only happens in running. I actually placed - 3rd - in a 5K - in my Age Group one time. It was a very *small* 5K field, though.
4) Running is really the only activity I am even remotely decent at. Cycling I enjoy more, but, I'm not good at it, and I've lost a lot of the zest I've had for it with the hyper-competitiveness of so many of the riders I encounter on the trails and roads around here.
5) Almost always the local amateur athletes that are good at their given sport, that I've met, are tremendously nice people. I've made some great friends. Its almost always the wanna-bees that don't have the ability to be competitive that are assholes.
Anyway, I'm not discounting racing for those that live it (and that are *good* at it!), but as a person with too many interests and all-too-short of an attention span, I'd rather focus on stuff that I'm better at. I'm way too Type A and perfectionistic to continue to wack my head against the wall if the gains to be made are limited.
I know that my parents, and father in particular were very proud of all the physical activity I did while they were alive. Dad in his mid to late 40s was afraid to do anything because of his heart condition (which he allowed to run and, in my opinion, ruin his life as well as my mother's for 33 years). He sat on his butt in his Lazy Boy before the heart attack and wore out more chairs than pairs of shoes after the heart attack and two open heart surgeries.
I know that my parents, and father in particular were very proud of all the physical activity I did while they were alive. Dad in his mid to late 40s was afraid to do anything because of his heart condition (which he allowed to run and, in my opinion, ruin his life as well as my mother's for 33 years). He sat on his butt in his Lazy Boy before the heart attack and wore out more chairs than pairs of shoes after the heart attack and two open heart surgeries.
I'm not going to be that person, and I'm sure part of my motivation for doing all the racing - because I also went through a phase of racing in college (then got burnt out on racing when I hobbled totally unprepared through the Iowa City Marathon-Half Marathon (I did the half) in 1985) was to show that I'm *not* doomed "to have heart problems." I don't want my kids to remember Dad as someone who sat in a chair and glowered at everyone while flipping TV channels. At the time, and now, I never thought it was much of a life.
The injury that cause me to take some stock - which almost certainly was due to riding a single speed bike with too large of a gear ratio (48x18) for my leg and also too much cycling without adequate rest - actually forced me to spend more time examining how I want to spend the time I have outside of going to work, sleeping, taking care of basic life issues, etc. in terms of self-improvement/edification. What I figured out is that I wanted to become a better guitar player, and that's been my focus for the past year.
And I'm having a lot of fun doing that, and discovering that the more I learn about music, the less I know and there's an entire lifetime you can spend learning and still barely scratch the surface. It is a very humbling experience but humbling in the best of all ways. Perhaps its art for arts sake... as someone who took a lot of courses in writing, I'm actually at a loss for words in describing or communicating why this is both fun, important, and fulfilling. I guess it really doesn't matter because its all inside my head anyway. The world outside our heads doesn't really give a damn about what's going on inside our heads as long as we are pleasant, smile, and bathe regularly.
No comments:
Post a Comment