Fallow Field

Joy here...Okay, I'm sick to death of the fact that my latest posts have been about me whining and whinging about not being in shape or not hitting my workouts.

Me climbing up the 15km hill.

Ugh.  What a bore!

So the good news is that I've changed all that, and I've got a solid week of workouts under my belt (more on that below).

But now that I've gotten off the couch and gotten back into the swing of things, I have a moment to reflect on my month(s) of lethargy.  You see, I had a similar moment when I was doing my Ph.D.  In fact, a friend of mine was visiting Ottawa, and I can't remember if I had actually finished my Ph.D. at that point or was just close (it's all a bit of a blur, really), but this friend was still in the painful throes of hers.  And one of the roadway passes that she had to drive by to get from Toronto where she was finishing her dissertation to Ottawa where we lived was called "Fallow Field Road."  So we were chatting about the concept of the
fallow field.  As the descendent of generations and generations of peasant farmers, it is in my blood to know all about leaving a field fallow.  Basically you leave a field unseeded during the growing season so that it can renew itself and produce a better yield in the following year.  As my friend and I talked about the concept of the fallow field, we talked about it in relation to academic work and the necessity to take some "down time" from hard thinking and writing in order to just lay fallow for a while.  And while it is necessary to do this in order to be able to yield greater crops - i.e. have better ideas and produce more writing - it takes a while to have the maturity and perspective not to freak the freak out during those unproductive, "fallow" times.  Now I've been working in the thinking industry for some time now, so I don't freak out so much when I have "fallow" times with respect to my writing or thinking work.  I know enough to know that I'll have some down time, and get right back at it, refreshed and better, when I'm good and ready for it.

The Man hitting the speed bag at the gym.

But I guess I'm still new at this whole running/cycling/fitness thing to have the kind of maturity necessary to see the need for some "fallow" time with respect to sport too.  It's not just about refreshing my body, but also refreshing my mind.  I really don't think that people can sustain a "training" mentality solidly without taking some down time.

Now for me, I didn't really hit my training objectives this year, so I figured that I wouldn't need any down time.

But the truth of the matter is that whether or not I hit my training goals (which I didn't), I was still thinking about them and beating myself up about not making my training objectives or hitting my workouts.  As a result, I was still mentally drained and getting more and more drained with each passing missed workout.  The farther I got off my plan, the harder it became to get back on the plan.

And then in my last post I had some hard thoughts about whether or not I can even be coach-able.

Beautiful early morning cycling scenery!

Then I talked to my coach on FaceTime, and told him the truth of the matter.  I told him that I'd let myself go; I told him that I'd missed my workouts; I told him that I felt like a sack of potatoes; I told him that I was having motivation issues; I told him that I wanted to get back into the swing of things but didn't know how...

And he told me to take a deep breath and that he'd make a super easy, super conservative plan for me for the week just to get myself moving.  And most importantly, he told me that this is supposed to be fun.

I had forgotten the fun aspect of training.

How silly is that?

So with that crazy idea of FUN in my head, I got out the door and completed 3 runs, 2 strength sets at the gym, and 2 bike rides this week!  I ran into the sunset, dead lifted 50kgs, and met some new cycling friends.  I laughed as I cornered at 53km/hr going downhill on a hot Sunday morning on my bike.  I felt like a hero as I knocked off my little 5km run.  I grunted like a weight lifter at the gym.  And through it all I had fun.

That fallow field just might be starting to yield crops again!

Me doing some bicep curls at the gym!

Watch out...I may just be baaaaaack,
Over and out,
Joy

This past week's workout stats:
Monday:  day off (had a heart-to-heart with my coach)
Tuesday:  90 minute bike ride up the 15km hill and back again & 90 minute strength training
Wednesday:  20 minute run (approx. 3kms)
Thursday:  90 minute strength training
Friday:  day off
Saturday:  30 minute run (approx. 5kms)
Sunday:  90 minute bike ride up the 15km hill and back again
Monday:  20 minute run (approx. 3kms)

Some thoughts on Coach-ability

Joy here...Back in 2010 I started up a running blog with my running buddy, Nomi, East and West Running, and for two years we wrote updates on our running training as we improved from being running nobodys to completing half marathons (me) and marathons (her).  Our blog was mostly upbeat as we improved and set ourselves new challenges.

Then in 2012 I got more into cycling, and Nomi lost interest in blogging (especially since some knee pain had sidelined her running for a while), so we put our co-written blog to bed, and I branched into my own little sporting blog, this one here.

I got myself a cycling coach, and then in short order I got myself a running coach.  I had visions of being a supreme athlete, and this blog would be a place where I'd be able to chart my successes.

But life has a funny way of dealing with hubris.  As with each passing day, as commitment issues, scheduling conflicts, and the insanity of life derailed my sporting plans one by one, I resisted the temptation to allow this blog to simply become a catalogue of my complaints (and I apologize now for the whinging that has needled its way into so many of my posts as of late).  But if I wasn't hitting my workouts, what the heck would I write about?  If I wasn't charting pace and distance, what the heck would I chart?

I ended up letting my cycling coach go after admitting that I just really didn't have the heart to commit to racing my bike.  With my life up in the air, too much travel, and too many other obligations, I just couldn't commit to the hours on my bike necessary to be really competitive.  Now my bike sits, resting against the wall, calling plaintively to me, and I will return to it.

Soon.

In the meantime, I'm hanging onto my running coach by the skin of my teeth, and I'm sure he's supremely disappointed in me as he sets up a training plan specifically designed for me, and I'm lucky if I hit any of those tailored workouts.  It must be like a chef slaving over a gourmet meal specifically tailored to someone who then sits there and maybe picks off a grape before leaving the dish untouched. I feel like a failure and an ingrate.

But more than that, I'm grappling with larger questions about my "coachability."  I wonder if all the excuses I have - scheduling, travelling, hosting, busyness, laziness - are all symptoms of a larger condition, my un-coachability.  

You see, I've realized that I'm not the greatest employee.  I have been both a high school English teacher and an English professor, and while I pat myself on the back and think that I was pretty good at both of those jobs, I didn't last too long at either of them.  I was a high school teacher for a total of 2 years, and a prof for a total of 5; my problem was usually that I really like my autonomy a lot and find it really hard to work within someone else's structure.  I know this about myself professionally, which is why I'm self-employed.  I get tonnes done, make my own schedule, get to be my own boss, and balance the things that I want without chaffing against someone else's framework.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if this over-inflated need for autonomy in me as a professional might also be linked to my under-performance as a coach-able athlete.

While The Man is very good at following workouts as outlined by his coaches (he has the same running coach that I do, and he picked up my cycling coach, to the great happiness of both of them). He is extremely coach-able, and always has been.  I admire that about him.  But as I admire many traits in many people that I don't have, I am wondering about what trait it is that I am lacking that has made me be the worst coaching client of all time.

And as I continue to ponder this question - my frustrating un-coach-ability - I will lace up my shoes and head out the door for my first run in what seems like months.

Over and out,
Joy

Dreamscape...

Joy here...I've been having trouble committing to my workouts; I've been letting myself and my coach down; but I'm doing my best to remain positive and keep taking one day at a time.

That is until I had the strangest dream.

You see, we've been hosting guests, and in my dream our guests, us, and other friends of ours were all outside under an evening sky on a wooden patio.  It wasn't a patio that I'm familiar with in my waking life, but as in many dreams, it was a familiar place, and I felt like I was at home.  There was a grassy patch of yard just beyond the patio, and some tropical trees moving softly in the warm evening breeze off in the distance.  A few dogs were frolicking on the lawn, while we mingled on the patio, and the lights from the house beyond cast our shadows long into the yard.  One of the dogs was jumping around and barking franticly.  She is one of our friend's beloved dogs (they have 6), and her name is Julie (pronounced the french way, like Djzulee).  The other dogs (about 3 of them) weren't ones I know in my waking life, but they were friendly, and we were happy to have them on the lawn.  Then suddenly, following Julie's lead, they all rolled on their backs, baring their stomachs to the night sky in positions of utter submission.

Better to run into a sucker like this in a dream than in
real life!

Those of us on the patio looked on in wonder at the strange behaviour, when suddenly, I saw something dark moving in the grass where the prone dogs lay utterly still.  Soon the strange, dark thing on the lawn raised itself up and came at us on the patio with startling speed; we were being attacked by a king cobra, his hood raised.  While everyone ran to the light of the house, I turned and promptly saw out of the corner of my eye, the snake making its way right for me.  It sank its teeth into the flesh of my butt, and I felt excruciating pain as it hung on, and as I crumbled to my knees, I remember shouting for my husband to call the hospital and tell them I've been bitten by a king cobra.

I then awoke, safe and sound in my bed.

My butt was just fine, and the pain, like the dream receded.

Then we took our guest to the zoo, and as we made our way to the reptile house, I cam face to face with a king cobra, separated only by a thin sheet of glass.  He stood up on a branch, holding himself vertical as he stared at me with his cold and unfathomable gaze.  I shuddered and walked on to the next exhibit.

Now I'm not a superstitious person, but I looked up what snakes are supposed to mean for dreamers.  Google tells me that dreaming of being bitten by a snake should serve as a "wake up call" for something, and since I was bitten in my ever-increasing butt, I'm assuming that my kick-in-the-butt wake up call (or rather bite-in-the-butt) is a warning that I need to get back into my workouts.

So I've got a trainer and I've been doing some strength training, core work, and plyometrics, and I'll be back out there running this week ASAP.

Next time, I intend to outrun that cobra!

Over and out,
Joy