By Rumon Carter
Jan. 18, 2007 -- My character and the way I conduct my life exist as a series of dichotomies. I love people, yet I'm something of a recluse. I'm happiest when enveloped by the raw outdoors but revel in the cultural trappings of the city. I relish organization and planning, yet carry myself through my day-to-day in an organic free-form flow (which others might describe as seat-of-my-pants near-chaos). I tell myself it's all part of the charm, but when it comes to Ironman, now inhabiting the same year as I, charm won't get me any farther than body marking. So, as is the case for athletes all over the northern hemisphere, it's time for me to set out an annual plan.
In setting out this plan, I'm going back to the future: back to 2001, the year of my first and only Ironman. As they say, if it ain't broke . . .
However, broke, sound or otherwise, as I blow the dust off that old training plan I'm plotting a few adjustments on the parchment. Why? Because if there's one way in which my personality holds true to a single unwavering pole, it is in my capacity for boredom. Even if you told me I could reprise my 9:27 Ironman from '01 by following precisely the same plan, I couldn't do it. I suspect this is one of the costs of human intelligence, even in one whose intelligence has been so often called into question. We crave variety and the stimulation of newness and change. As athletes, we're no different. We love to track change in the form of athletic improvement between season's beginning and goal race's end. But how many of us would be wholly satisfied in our sport if every season and from year to year the only variable was some percentage improvement in race times? What fuels the growing industry of sports tourism, Ironman triathletes traveling with bike box in hand to places like the Canary Islands (Lanzarote) and Malaysia at its vanguard?
Variety, newness and a sense of adventure.
Which brings me back to my new/old plans for 2007. If you're following my
blog, you'll know that my hometown is being held within the unfamiliar and unwelcome grip of winter, making riding outdoors an impossibility. Though the snow and ice would in fact have me overjoyed if we had the infrastructure for cross-country skiing, one can't hope for so much from a town that typically dips below freezing about two days out of the year. So, we run. Which, to be perfectly honest, is what I'd be focusing on even without the snow. The reasons for this focus come down to process and outcomes. The process rationale has to do with the fact that the shorter days of winter make it harder to fit bike rides into the work-a-day; that and the fact there's really no more time efficient way to build aerobic fitness and drop the weight I've accumulated from five years of eating like, but not training like, an Ironman.
The outcome goal for the running is what has me really excited this early season. In 2001 I trained for a spring marathon to kick-start the season and to act as a tangible, significant goal for the first third of the year. Though I ended up dropping the race down to a half marathon, having that focal point to my early season training proved incredibly valuable. Recalling my admission to getting easily bored or distracted, I really don't think I have the constitution to be able to train from now until Ironman Canada in August without getting derailed by a lack of motivation. What puts the icing on the goal marathon this year is that my two favourite training partners, Jim and Michael, have signed on to the same (more or less program). What's more, we've just had our entries confirmed for the Flora London Marathon, where this year perhaps the greatest ever men's marathon field is being assembled. Following in the footsteps of (120-pound.) giants! I'm pumped.
The only kicker to running the Flora London Marathon (April 22) is that I also want to race Wildflower (May 5) for the first time. It's hilly, right? I may be in trouble. Following Wildflower, my next major triathlon goal with be the New Balance Half Iron on June 24, by which time my legs and I should be back on speaking terms. And then there are just a few long bike rides before Ironman Canada at the end of August.
It's amazing, after so many years of doing this kind of thing, how short the year can seem when you map it out as a series of numbered weeks and microcycles. It's at once reassuring (alright, these are manageable chunks of time) and scary (these chunks of time are way too small for me to get ready!). Either way, as I plan ahead I need to remain mindful of how my heart reacted when I tried slamming it with training last year, so the road to fitness must incline only gradually and be paved with proper nutrition and systems of physical and psychological support. So far, body -- heart included -- and mind are in order (excepting any peanut-gallery comments from my wife to the contrary), though there haven't yet been any significant stressors applied to either. We'll see what happens in less than two weeks, when the serious work of specific marathon training begins.
Thanks for being along for the ride.
Rumon Carter, 31, is a multisport athlete, coach and sports and health advocate. Once a member of the Canadian National Age-Group Triathlon Team, Carter's triathlon aspirations were derailed when he developed a heart condition following a 9:27 debut Ironman in 2001. Following heart surgery in early 2006, he has been reporting dispatches from the road back to fitness in his column, The Heart of the Matter.