Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Motivation from unexpected sources

Last week I embarked on my newly crafted training plan only for my enthusiasm to peter out by Thursday. On Saturday I was home alone with my daughter who, as many teenagers do, slept in so I went for a 45' walk. Along this walk many of the TNT faithful were out putting in their miles for whichever event they were training for but my goal is to get to a solid 5k walking at a time. My ankles still hurt me but both Dr. Google and a real doctor said that is my new reality, at least for the next 6-9 months until my tendonosis heals.

I woke up Sunday completely unmotivated. My ankles were yipping. My back was hurting. The aches and pains of being me seemed to be winning the argument. I begged off my scheduled bike ride and sat around the house, flipping channels on the television, hunting for an interesting baseball game to watch while puttering around the house with the game as background noise. I instead found the rebroadcast of IMKona on NBC.

During the broadcast, Al Trautwig mentioned something like that there was no place quite like the finish line of an ironman and that unless you experienced it, even as a spectator, let alone as an athlete, you could never truly understand the emotions flying around. He said that the people that you meet while racing Ironman are unique and those short lived friendships can change your perspective on a bunch of things. I looked at myself lying on the couch and felt shame because these thoughts resonated with me. I only later realized that all may or may not have said those exact works but even so I now felt motivated.

There was a 5pm spin class still available so I signed up. Rather than a 45 minute class this was a 60 minute "survivor" class. Even so, I went and was glad I did. Monday I was flying out to Texas and hopped in the pool to have a quick swim before the travel began.

The motivation from that broadcast is still working for me. It is stupid hot here outside of Dallas so we'll see if I am still motivated tonight with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees. Too bad I don't have this recorded to watch the show again for another jolt of Trautwig motivation. May need to get it from some other unexpected source.

4 comments:

Teamarcia said...

I love those IMKona broadcasts. Love them. Glad they're working for you.

Ransick said...

I love those IM Kona broadcasts too. I keep the last few years on my DVR.

TriMOEngr said...

I love those Ironman videos. I watch them on YouTube sometimes. But having a training plan has been helping me some. Now I just have to do a nutrition plan and reign in the calories and peel off these 20+ lbs. Maybe it will make everything hurt less. Hang in there!

Jford said...

4 in a row for loving those broadcasts!