An Evaluation of Hindrances

            This one is going to be a bit different.  I wish to make a comment on the psychology of the athlete.

            All I ever want is for easy things to go right, and for bad things to slowly go away through learning the bad things’ weaknesses and exploiting them ruthlessly.  I demand my hindrances revere me and fear me, for I desire to get rid of them.  There are a few problems.  The first is arrogance, which makes me think that I can do new things well and do old things better with less effort.  The second is that I am merely one person, and while I know many things about myself, I don’t know quite how they interact, particularly in a relationship to time or context.  This is why athletes have a constellation of advisers around them who know them and who are, ideally, less susceptible to the first problem because they are motivated inherently by selflessness in the relationship.  (Athletes are always by necessity self-centered.  There are no exceptions.)

            Do you ever feel like you make a mistake, and since any mistake is almost certainly a result of bad faith, the mistake was a result of another mistake, which was a result of a mistake, and on and on down the line?  Perhaps that is an idle feeling, for you should just make a re-commitment to fix what you can and move on.  There is a way to be active in the situation, forward-facing.  To say that a problem is a learning opportunity is easy to say and hard to act out with equanimity.  When things are going really well, it’s never easy, but it is always simple; there are very few questions.  It’s always a spectrum, I suppose.

            There are a certain set of calculations, which, being followed, tend to guide the ship rightly.  And yet you never know for sure, I mean for sure for sure, that the ship is going in the right direction until you actually get to your destination.  That's a wild existence.

Sunday 10/9: 10 miles, 66 minutes.  On the Minuteman trail. The best I’ve felt in a while, around 6:20s the last 4 miles.  This was my third day back after most of last week off.

Monday: AM 3 miles easy. PM 5 miles easy plus lift, core, ice bath, massage.  Good to get back into the rhythm of doubling even though they were short.

Tuesday: 9 miles, 60 minutes at Fresh Pond.  Mostly 6:30 pace, then stretched the legs out a bit the last two miles, perhaps 5:50 pace without really going for anything.  Things are turning around.

Wednesday: AM 4.5 miles easy. PM 6 miles easy plus lift, self-massage (rolling out on this pin type thing), ice bath.

Thursday: 9 miles, 62 minutes at Fresh Pond.  Quads a little beat up, but that’s it.  Plus massage.

Friday: 8.5 miles, 60 minutes at Fresh Pond.  With 6x30 second pick-ups in the midst of it.  A good way to get a little bit of pace into it.

Saturday: 6 miles easy on the river plus core.

61 miles.  Made a re-commitment to stretching and lifting this week and got back into the rhythm of regular training.