Beginner's Luck

I set out to write an article about getting organized. I actually wrote one. In it I described all the things I have done in the last little while to prepare for the rigors of Ironman training. Planning for success, as they say.

I described the things I was doing in each area of my life to get organized. I sorted out the practical side of the children's needs for the next semester. I organized my project list for the house and completed all but the last few tasks on my to-do list for this year. I set a deadline for the beginning of September, and if a job wasn’t completed I resolved to at least have the materials needed in the house so that I could slowly putter away over the winter months. I am now puttering.

I checked out my gear and identified only the essentials that required replacing. All I need are new orthotics and running tights (excluding consumables, like running shoes). Both have now been taken care of. I have also taken a look at my training schedule from a real-life perspective and determined that a few shifts are in order. Mostly, I need now to think of my training in two-week cycles. I have tweaked some of the scheduling and am happier with the way things are fitting in.

I have assessed my physical health and admitted that I have an unhappy hip requiring intensive work. As a result, I have now connected with the new physiotherapist and she is great. Finally, I have looked at my working life and taken stock. I have examined the goals and objectives for the upcoming year and charted a course for getting there.

Sounds organized, doesn’t it? I am organized, but for one essential element—my head.

I know that no matter how organized I can appear to be on the outside, if the inside isn't just as organized things very rapidly come apart. I am highly distractible. I'm not naturally organized. But I have been taught a few tricks by the master—my mom. But all the to-do lists in the world won't do anything for motivation, and so I finally realized my head and heart needed organizing too.

First, I got back on my bike and stopped avoiding all the hills. Hills are my friend. I am trying to say it again for it is time to embrace, not fear, them. My heart loves the feeling (even if my legs don't) of getting up and over the top.

Next, I returned to my reading and picked up Lance Armstrong's Every Second Counts. I also returned to my love of Everest books and read Jamling Tenzing Norgay’s Touching My Father’s Soul and Beck Weathers' Left for Dead.

Get up.

Over the years I have quietly, and frequently, told myself to get up! No equivocating, no ambivalence, just do it. It's not about getting out of bed either. It's about overcoming inertia, overcoming fear or the urge to do things the easy way. Imagine my surprise when Lance used the very phrase to get himself up off the ground after getting snagged by a tourist bag and falling. Beck Weathers said the same thing to bring himself back from the dead, to get himself up to a standing position over and over again, without use of his hands in order to reach safety.

"Get Up," each of them has said, so simple and yet so very not. This is the only in context in which organization works, at least for me. I can have all the right gear waiting at the door for me, the best thought-out workout that inconveniences no one, but if I can’t get myself out the door it's all worth squat. If I can't get myself away from my computer to get to the pool, can't convince myself that even though I am down, a ride might make me feel better, then I may as well give up. Go home. Quit.

In the end, for me, it's all about head management and that's what I am training at this point in my season—my head. Do not stop pedaling, do not axe your warm down, do not cut your run short, do not choose the flat route, do not do a repeat at 60% when 85% is called for. Get up, get it done. Do it.

Over the coming months, I know there will be days when I will want to stay in bed instead of running in the dark, will want to do less than more, will prefer not to have to face the tough stuff anywhere in my life. I know, though, that in the end there is nothing more confidence-building, esteem-boosting and life-affirming than rousing myself. That is why I am training my head right now so that I can watch myself, show myself that when the chips are down I do not quit, I get myself back up. That's the direction I am headed, that's where my heart is. That's why I am beginning to wake up early to run, climbing hills on my bike and doing repeat 200s in the pool all over again.

Still Tri’n