My long slow slide into abysmal oblivion in endurance athletics continues.
The last three weeks have been….disappointing.
This morning, I attempted to swim with the Coach On Deck group at the Wave. I put myself in the farthest left lane. Let’s just say that my performance wasn’t encouraging.
However, I intend to go back on Wednesday morning, because – at least I did, indeed, swim. I hope to get out for a jog today, but I don’t expect to get out for a jog today.
I’ve gotten back up to where I was with Total Eclipse. Now I need gumption to get further along. The place I’m stuck is the part where she sings
Once upon a time I was falling in love, But now I’m only falling apart – Nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the heart
As I’ve said before, I never really bothered to understand these lyrics back when I was singing ’em loud and drunk in the early 80s. It’s about somebody whose loving relationship is the only thing in their life which is working well, and consistently – everything else is falling apart.
Well, things ain’t that bad. Yes, of course, my marriage is the second strongest and most enduring thing in my life, of course, right after my sobriety in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is exactly as solid as the effort put into it.
My health – overall – seems to be excellent*, and my finances are in good shape. Friendships are okay – socializing is taking a beating due to COVID, of course, and I am an introvert, after all, so I get more socializing than I want 🙂
And I live in Whitefish, MT, so – I win!
But my training, which is a big part of my life, is going downhill. My energy levels, as well, are not recovering, even with the reduced training. My gumption in several areas is lacking.
And the college football season leaves a lot to be desired.
I’ve been praying about this, and I suppose I’ll go ahead and watch college football with family and friends. I wrote down the things that I do know –
I am no longer running the show.
I am not allowed to impose my will on anyone else.
If I am doing any of the things that the examples of self-will are doing, at the bottom of page 61 and the top of 62, then I’m in trouble.
God is running my life, and my world.
Given that, I reckon I will simply watch college football, ignoring as best I can the silliness – and, to the extent that I can’t ignore the silliness, that’s where I need to be working the Steps, because “love and tolerance of others is our code”.
“Code” here means law.
Oh, well. It’s another growth opportunity.
Hope I’ve got enough energy for that.
*for a 61 year old man who is going to die any minute. Full disclosure.
My two hour ride this morning – after an easy week – didn’t go well.
Well, something’s wrong with me physically. I reckon I’ll just have to admit it. I may never know what it is – or “was” if it goes away. I never knew why I lost 2 min/mile in January of 2013, and it’s never come back.
But at least college football starts today, right?
Well, yes. I reckon.
But now the Crimson Tide – players and coaches – are marching for Black Lives Matter.
So, I reckon that’s gone.
Ethel always asked me “Why don’t we get Alabama tattoos?” and I always said “What happens when Lane Kiffin becomes their coach? You gonna have a laser tattoo removal?”
She’d say “They won’t hire Lane Kiffin.” So then I would say, “Well what will you do when the team or school does something completely against your values? Will you still root for them?”
Remarkably, she can’t seem to remember what she said in answer. And, even more remarkably, right now, neither can I 🙂
But I’m pretty sure about what I said. I said, “Then I’ll be an Auburn fan.”
But, apparently, the illness is pandemic. I was watching the first FCS game of the season, and the players were raising their fists at the first kickoff.
College football has been one of my passions for many, many years. And I don’t care about NFL, at all. Why? Because I’ve never cared about the NFL players. Why would I invest emotion in a bunch of folks earning paychecks?
Well, now I can’t bring myself to care about these kids, either. I wish ’em well, but I’m not going to spend time or energy rooting for them. They were individuals, each with their own views. Now they’ve chosen to take the University name and attach a social and political agenda to it.
I sat on a tank for four years guaranteeing the right for folks to be as whiny and pandering as they wish. But I’m probably not going to watch 🙂
But, hey – the good news is, my fall Saturday calendar just opened way up 🙂
That’s a word that has some pretty wide-ranging – and vague – definitions.
There’s the rate of flow of a liquid, or of particles, across a given boundary. There’s an abnormal discharge of blood, there’s a substance mixed with a solid to lower its melting point.
And, of course, there is always 1.21 Gigawatts!
But one of the defintions that we use most oftens seems to be “continuous change” – as in “in a state of flux”.
So, why do we need a word for everything that always is, as is? 🙂 …yeah, there’s the notion of “static”, which is the opposite, but is anything in the universe actually static*?
But sometimes, things are more fluxy than other times. And these days, flux is at a maximum.
The B1G – that’s the official name (and spelling, if you can call a “word” with a 1 as a letter a “spelling”) of what we call the “Big 10” conference, which is an athletic conference of 14 institutions of higher learning, none of which, apparently, able to count – said that they weren’t going to play football this year. Then they said that they were going to play a “spring season”, which meant starting in January (raise your hand if you live in Minnesota and you want to start your football season in January) and now, apparently, they say that they may start Thanksgiving weekend, instead.
So they are in a state of “flux”. There are other words that sound sort of like “flux” that might describe their state of mind, but this is a family publication.
There’s the Pandemic, which is a “pandemic”, sure, except not many people actually have the illness itself. I find it interesting how many news items cross my feed like “Whitefish city employee tests positive for COVID” or “College football player tests positive for COVID”. Folks, if somebody getting an illness is news, then it ain’t a “pandemic” 🙂 But that, as well, is in a state of flux, in that the CDC keeps changing its guidelines, and the definition of the illness itself keeps changing, and the list of symptoms keeps changing.
There’s the state of mind of this country, which – although I do everything I can to keep away from any updates along those lines – seems to be in a state of flux, as well. As I told my sponsor many months ago – the world has gone crazy, but it’s never the man standing next to me.**
Then, there’s, well, me.
WHO I AM is in no danger of instability – I’m an alcoholic*, and I define myself that way, and that seems unshakable. And the use of the verb “to be” in only that context keeps me grounded in many ways – it keeps me free from any other definitions, such as “husband” or “father” or “triathlete” or “Episcopalian”. And that keeps my primary purpose firmly entrenched.
But right now, the roles in my life are taking a beating. Or, perhaps it would be better expressed as changing priorities and degrees among those roles.
All of this comes down to allocations of time, money and energy, as I said some months back – and, these days, it’s the energy that’s the problem, because that’s the thing that is in the shortest supply.
Continuing to train for long course triathlon has cost me so much energy. Travel – and the stress of travel in the COVID world – has cost a good bit. Ski season was the sneak thief in my energy budget, as well.
In addition, there’s Trazadone.
When I was 50 years old, my doctor prescribed Trazadone as a sleep aid. Like most folks who cross that barrier, I found that my sleep got more fragmented, and – since I’m an alcoholic and possibly prone to addiction – the doc suggested Trazadone, taken at bedtime.
Trazadone, though, is a specific for a lot of things, and one of those is depression. But when taken as an antidepressant, it is taken during the day, in split doses, rather than all at once, at night.
So every so often I think “Maybe I shouldn’t be taking so much Trazadone”, and I start to reduce my dosage. And that works just fine, until I reach a point where I’m not staying asleep as well, or that I have less energy during the day.
So I wonder if, even though I am taking it as a sleep aid, it’s not also helping my depression – yes, I’m a depressive. I’m pretty sure that I got that from Mom. it doesn’t trouble me that greatly, or that often.
Being a depressive, though – AND being greatly involved in endurance athletics – I’ve found a pretty simple way to determine whether I’m depressed, or tired.
If I feel very fatigued or unwilling to train, I go ahead and start training. If the problem is depression, then activity makes it feel better. But if the problem is fatigue, then activity makes it feel worse.
But what if it’s both?
And, since Trazadone is a sleep aid and an anti-depressant***, it’s entirely possible that it could be both.
So, for now, I’m going back to the full dosage. And let’s see if this helps me get enough energy to at least maintain my now-much-reduced training load, AND live a life.
*I believe that God is static, but then, God isn’t in the universe, and He doesn’t need a word to explain Him 🙂
*Of course, the crazy ones may be the type of people who wouldn’t dream of standing next to me, ever. They are the ones who WHOOP WHOOP DANGER WILL ROBINSON EVERYTHING’S ALREADY GONE TO HELL AND THE WORLD IS A BUCKET OF POOP WITH THE HANDLE INSIDE AND FIRMLY AFFIXED TO THE BOTTOM! – yeah, those folks, and those folks are happiest around other Chicken Littles. I find it comforting, and reassuring to my self image, that those folks never seem to want to talk to me 🙂
….which, besides being French for “king”, is an acronym meaning “return on investment”.
Here’s the mess on the island after I made breakfast.
I make breakfast because Ethel likes having breakfast. I wouldn’t do this for myself – I’d eat cheese and peanut butter instead, adding tuna if I lifted that day – but it means that I’m doing something that I wouldn’t want to do, and somebody else is benefiting, so I get to stay sober.
Not that I don’t like eggs, bacon and toast. But what i don’t care for is the low ROI. It takes longer to clean up the mess than it takes to eat the meal. That’s not even addressing that it takes longer to fix than it takes to clean up.
Now, when I say “low ROI”, I’m speaking in terms of the meal itself. My book tells me that I have to practice work and self-sacrifice for others or I will not stay sober. So, I’m okay with that – that’s an infinite ROI, because it involves division by zero, and “zero” is me if I don’t stay sober*.
But I’ve been looking at a lot of the rest of my life lately in terms of ROI, and not liking some of the things that I am seeing.
And the biggest one, without a doubt, is my training.
I haven’t done a triathlon in two years – my last was a sprint in 2018. And I haven’t done an Ironman in almost three years. But I keep trying to get my training up to the levels needed in order to do another Ironman, plus spending the money to register, and yet I’m failing.
In addition, doing all of that training costs me most of the rest of my life, in that I’m too tired for pretty much everything else.
Now, this would seem to be obvious – just like nonalcoholics tell us drunks, “well, gee – then don’t do that!”
But there are complications.
Not having a big race means NOT training, for somebody like me. And not training, for somebody like me, means opening up my lungs and letting the water in, and giving up all life and hope (see my last post) – because I’ve learned that, as my friend Larry said many years ago, “I can’t exercise for ten minutes, but I can train all day long”.
“Exercise” means doing one thing for another reward – running to manage weight and stress. Lifting to change body composition and keep healthy bones. Swimming…well, I don’t know why one would swim, without triathlon.
Training, on the other hand, is doing something to get better at doing that something, with an end game in mind.
But here I am – I’m worn out, again. I haven’t had a good run in almost two weeks. My open water swimming is just terrible. The bike is okay, but even that has taken a hit – yesterday I had to drop the wattage for a bit in order to finish a VO2Max workout.
And it’s very hard to keep training when the ultimate aim – a race itself – may not even happen.
I didn’t realize that I would arrive here when I started typing this post. But, here I am.
I’ve said it before, but I reckon I’m saying it again.
I give up.
I’m backing off – not for the day or the week, but …for good. I still want to do triathlon, but I just can’t do long course any more. My body won’t take it.
So the first implementation of this will be – I’m going to stop doing Tue/Thur hard rides and runs. I’m going to do the same rides, but not doing the runs on the same days. I’m giving that up.
And I’m not doing IMAZ. I don’t know what I will do with that registration, but I’m not doing it. I’m giving up on long course triathlon. The cost is just too high, on me and on those around me.
(sigh)
Okay. There.
*okay, on second thought, that isn’t true. An unsober me isn’t “zero” but is, instead, a near-infinite negative number. Zero has no effect, but I’d be destroying everything good about everyone’s life within line of sight.
It’s the 21st of August. It can’t possibly be time to start raking leaves, even in northwest Montana.
But, there they are.
It seems that the cottonwoods up here on Great Northern Heights Ridge are turning. So, in fact, perhaps it is time to start raking leaves. Or will be soon.
And I’m just too lazy for that.
This week, I’ve been hit by the lazies. Either that, or it’s overtraining, again. My run on Tuesday was awful, my open water swim on Wednesday was awful, and I couldn’t even finish my run on Thursday, even though the ride went okay. I’m hoping to complete my planned weekend, which will at least keep me over 8 hours for the week.
It might be fatigue, from the last eight weeks, and from travel, but I suspect it’s just laziness. Chronically acute laziness.
I was thinking about my laziness today. Ever since I got my great recliner, I’ve been falling asleep in it. My dad did that, after he retired. Now, usually I’m doing full-on IronMan training and making meetings and maybe some housework in addition, but this week, I’ve just been a slacker.
I think I have the lazy gene.
So here’s something; out of my four grandparents, and my two parents, and my three children, and my two grandchildren already of college age, I am the only one to get a Bachelor’s Degree. And I wouldn’t have gotten that if’n Ethel hadn’t been behind me with a whip and a chair, the whole time.
Now, full disclosure – both of my parents attended college. But neither finished. And, as far as I can tell, Dad only went to college so that he could keep playing football.
My eldest son actually has two Associate’s Degrees – Criminal Justice and Nursing – but just wasn’t interested in a Bachelor’s. My eldest granddaughter seems to have no real interest in an education as such – she’s training as a dental assistant. My next granddaughter started in a four year program, but then went to a community college to get an Associates – again, in Nursing.
My other two boys? Silas attended one semester, and bailed. Andrew never had any such ambition at all.
Apparently, we all do the minimum just to get by. The lazy gene is strong in us. BTW – according to the Washington Post, there is, indeed, such a thing.
(I wonder if the lazy gene is linked to the alcoholism gene – in all of my extended family, both parents’ siblings and children, only my father, me, and my progeny have that particular blessing and curse.)
I have to be diligent to keep from spending my life in my easy chair. Heck, I may wind up selling it and getting a bed of nails instead. Otherwise, I might wind up like Dad, where “retirement” means “five years in a recliner, then dead”.
So I have this Pixel 2 XL which cost me a bundle a couple of years ago.
Now, the screen has gone bad.
I also have the Asurion insurance. So, I ordered a new phone, and it got here yesterday.
The deductible for that Asurion replacement seems to keep going up – this one was $200. That’s in addition to the $45/month charge for the insurance. I think I’m through now.
The main reason I’m posting this is so that I will have a record, when the next one goes bad, of just when it happened, so that if it’s inside of a year, I can claim the warranty coverage.
I say “when this one goes bad”, because it will; I don’t actually get a NEW phone from Asurion. I get a “refurbished” phone. So, next time, if it’s not covereed under warranty, I reckon I’ll change to a different phone. I don’t actually NEED a Google Pixel 2. I’d be okay with a flip phone.
In fact, there are reasons why a flip phone might be better. I was just in Mexico, in a resort hotel that had every amenity possible, except for free wifi. And when you purchased the wifi, it was only for one device. So before I left, there were many, many data overage charges.
Heck, I had people texting me with GIFs. I simply do not understand using GIFs. It’s almost like saying “Why, no, I can’t express myself through the written word. So, here are ten moving pictures.”
GIFs are sort of like profanity – they are used to make up for communications skills shortfalls. But they do so at the cost of 1s and 0s.
A flip phone would prevent that. I think – for all I know, flip phones now might be smart flip phones. Who knows?
….I’ve been home now for 3.75 days. And I haven’t yet recovered from the trip, or from something. I didn’t swim on Monday (full disclosure – right now, “swim” means “go to the lake and jump into freezing Montana water in a wetsuit and try to avoid the boats”. So it’s not a very inviting proposition) and, while I did my ride and run yesterday, my run was two minutes slower than it has been for the last three weeks, and I didn’t lift at all. And I felt sick for the rest of the day.
Here in a little while, I am – no, really, I am – going to get in my truck and drive to City Beach* and put on my wetsuit and at least walk out into that cold, cold water and swim a few hundred yards. Right now, I’ll call that a win. It’s character building.
We have friends from Salt Lake who are up here vacationing, and we’re having them over for dinner tonight. Wow – it’s been over a year since I’ve seen Paul and Susan. I think we were with them on Cozumel a year ago April, but I can’t be sure. It’s been over a year since I retired (Paul works at Workday) so it’s been that long since I’ve seen any of those folks.
Okay, before I posted this, I did my scales. Now I’m going to play some piano, and then….then I’m going to get in the truck and go freeze my patootie off in the lake.
No, really.
*yes, that’s what they call it. It’s mostly rocks and white clay mud, but it does fit the definition of a “beach” 🙂 Hey – it’s a ski town. And the lake is beautiful. So I’ll live with the “beach” 🙂
This morning’s workout I cut short. Since I’m traveling today, I moved today to Friday, and tomorrow to this morning, and my knee was a bit wonky, and there were other factors(1) – so I cut it short.
I’ve still got the best numbers I’ve had since IMAZ two years ago. That’s the result, I am sure, of eight weeks of consistency.
First off – I cancelled the condo purchase. Not because of anything wrong with the condo or with Cabo – I simply realized that I could not, for the life of me, figure out what a life here would be like. After my workout in the morning, until meeting in the evening – what would I be doing? So we decided to rent for four months next Spring, to see how it goes.
But while I’m ready to be back in my house, I am not excited about going back to the US. I had a minor mental tantrum this morning. I’m just not happy about the things happening in my country. I’ll either accept them, though, or we’ll leave ahead of schedule. (I’m aware that, the way things work, it might happen that I will accept them, and still leave. We’ll see).
I’m still successfully avoiding the news and such. But I’m watching what’s happening with college football – can’t avoid THAT – and it’s hard to reconcile. And I’m seeing what’s happening in AA – people being kept from meetings by their families or employers because of fear, or because of pandering to a belief in fear that the panderers do not share but comply with; that’s something that I can’t unsee.
And, if I do happen to get near a screen where the news is on, I see riots and protests, and I am reminded that governors have actually proclaimed that it’s okay to riot and protest without masks or social distancing, and…I haven’t been able to reconcile that one, either. So I have step work to do until I can accept these things.
I am no longer running the show; I’m supposed to remind myself of this many times each day.
This is a diary. Later on, I’ll wonder what was wrong. It’s good to write it down now, because after I accept it, I won’t remember it. That{s the way that acceptance works.
But, right now, I would just as soon not have to go through it.
(1) I am using this for a footnote because I can’t find the asterisk on this Mexican keyboard…..okay, it has been very humid this week, so humid that yesterday, after an hour on the bike, they actually put a full size towel on the ground behind me, because I was puddling at a rate such that there was a small lake forming on the ground behind me, deep enough that one would actually splash if one went through it. So I’m extra tired.
And my headset filled up with water so much that today it kept slipping off my ears, and then went dead from being wet. And my knee was clicking and quanging, and I remember the last time that I tried to finish a long run in Mexico with a wonky knee – I wound up in surgery for a meniscus.
Tomorrow, if I feel better, I’ll pick up that 3.66 miles that I was short today.
Well, I haven’t posted in a couple of week. Ethel broke her laptop 🙂 and so I haven’t had access to this interface.
Then I found out that the hotel had a business center, so that’s where I’m sitting. However, it’s a Mexican keyboard, so every punctuation mark takes me quite a while to get worked out 🙂
Training is going very well – very consistent, and that is the most important thing. I’m making a meeting every day – we love the meetings here, and there are lots of newcomers.
And we may, indeed, finally, be buying a condo in Mexico 🙂
Miró Los Cabos is a new development which will (allegedly) look like this in January. Right now, it’s a lot of concrete. We’re putting money down on a second story two bedroom unit. We like the location, we like the view, and we like the layout and finishings.
And we have found that we really, really like Cabo San Lucas more than the other places. And this part of Cabo is cooler than the other parts; it gets a nice Pacific breeze. It’s about six minutes from the meeting, maybe eight to the beach.
I´m putting a deposit down until I can talk to my money guy and make sure that I’m not making too big a mistake. I’m okay with a small mistake 🙂
Now it’s time for me to head back to the pool. This morning was another ten miler; I finished up another consistent week. We have another six days here – we leave on Saturday. Then we go back up north to a country which seems less and less welcoming, although Montana at least still has some sense.
And it’s possible that we will be back here – with truck and dogs – at the end of ski season. Possible.
Fat Charlie's Diary 