stairs

You gotta love the weekend. Wakin' up without an alarm clock is heavenly. Nice big breakfast and off to the pool for a nice big swim workout. 13 * 400. This effort pays big dividends on raceday. You can swim the 2.4mi on raceday pretty hard and get outta the water feeling euphorically fresh, ready to lay it down on the bike.

Energy, however, is increasingly more difficult to come by these days. Shorter, darker, colder days don't inspire desire in the hearts of most athletes. Higher temps and plenty o' that beeeautiful sunshine get my motor runnin'. So those first 5 or 6 400s this morning challenged me to think why it was I was in the pool in the first place. My splits weren't particularly fast by comparison to where they were in July. Usually, if you give it some time, the rhythm finds you. It's almost like your body needs to be convinced your serious about the workout before it gives you the feel good endorphins which propel you forward with power and grace. Surroundings disappear, time fades away, and, suddenly, you've arrived on the other side, invigorated.

Confidence certainly comes from doing the required work. There's simply no hiding from the truth. Sometimes, you just gotta turn your brain off and get the job done. Being on the other side of 13 * 400 feels good and alleviates some stress associated with the kona swim. Is work actually work when it serves a higher purpose for you? Long before I knew what "brick" workout was my high school wrestling coach used to make the entire team run in an enclosed stairwell from time to time. Up and down and up and down we would go. Occasionaly he would have us carry a brick in each hand and pump our arms while we ran. This was an annual tradition and part of our pre-season conditioning. As much as my team-mates and I might have complained about our coach's dubious training technique I think we all thoroughly looked forward to and benefited from the experience. In our adolescent minds it simply made us tougher than the competition. Now, I think of a quote a former student gave to me which I shared with my students this week: "You can't take the elevator to success...you have to take the stairs."