An Endurance Nation team mate asked me how my “build was going into IM Arizona”. I respected his question, and felt I owed him (and myself) an honest assessment of my preparation and thinking. Here’s what I told him:
I’ve had a very good 12 weeks or so since my race Aug 9 at the USAT Nationals. 2 weeks CO/1 week back @ sea level/2 weeks in CO/1 week back home/2 weeks in Hawaii then a final push since then.
I’ve gotten a lot of confidence from the swim volume and running I’ve been doing; I’m not faster, but I feel I have more staying power, and can hold the same speed more easily. Biking, my last RR, I was able to hold a higher IF than anytime in the past 3-4 years of doing them.
I’ve been constantly working on the mental prep to make this a “no holds barred” race. Any time I start to think about whom I might be racing against, or what the weather will be like, I immediately replace that with thoughts of how I will approach the race. I’ve used two key goals for focus: (a) while I am realizing I’ll never again be as fast as I was 4 years ago on this course, I can go faster than 3 years ago, and last year; and (b) at this stage of my triathlon career, and my life, I can not know when I’ll be doing my last race, so I’d better go as if this is the last one.
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Writing down those last two goals helped crystallize my feelings going into this race. I have been pointing towards it ever since November, 2011, calling it “my Olympics”. (This got a rejoinder: don’t you mean the “Alympics”?) At EN, recognizing how hard it is to reach deep late in the run and pull out a strong race, we emphasize having “One Thing”, an over-arching goal to draw strength from when the feeling to slow down, or even quit, becomes overpowering. I’m usually pretty good at getting thoughts and emotions like that into a taut, succinct statement. But this race has proved a bit more complex, and the best I’ve been able to do is demonstrate those thoughts above in a playlist for the race:
- The Last Time – Rolling Stones. Well, this could be the last time I ever race, I don’t know. You just never know, especially at my age. Whether it’s an accident, injury, illness, or just retirement, I can’t be sure any more.
- In My Hour of Darkness – Gram Parsons. The last song on his last album, released just before he self-immolated into a heroin haze. It’s haunting, alluding to success tempered by endings and death. Yet the chorus seeks salvation: “In my hour of darkness, in my hour of need, oh, Lord, grant me vision, oh Lord, grant me speed.”
- Floating Bridge – Gregg Allman. This modern version of a classic blues call-and-response by Sleepy John Estes. Allman sent it out around Christmas, 2010, as I was recovering from my near-death bicycle accident. The story was downright eerie to me, recounting a fall from a bridge, near drowning, being saved by bystanders, and the awful feelings engendered.
- Racing in the Streets – Bruce Springsteen. After three songs which dwell on the immanence (and imminence) of death, a straight-forward ode to simply getting out on the street and laying the throttle down. Allusions to Martha and the Vandellas countered by Jan and Dean’s Deadman’s Curve continue the counterpoint between between having fun in the face of impending doom – whistling past the graveyard, I guess.
- You Don’t Get Much – BoDeans. “You don’t get much without giving”, and Kenny Aronoff’s driving drum work.
- Don’t Stop – Fleetwood Mac. When my girls asked me to see Fleetwood Mac a few years ago with them, I said, “It’s not Fleetwood Mac without Christine McVie”. Four days after IM AZ, we will be going to the Tacoma Dome to see the REAL Fleetwood, finally. She may be a wooden performer, but she writes brilliant folk and rock. “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow” is a much better way of saying, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”