Am I getting up or am I falling down?

This morning's run--good morning, Virginia!

I know that, on the surface, all athletes go through one form of this or another.  It's perfectly normal and logical to have ruts, down periods, and low motivation at times when training and racing.  Several years ago now, I pulled out all the stops, abused the crap out of my body, and got through an amazing day at Ironman Arizona.  It was a year that I recognized to be advancement in the sport of triathlon that was paralleled by similar experiences im my life, like the first year that I went to Pine Crest as a swimmer in high school--the simple reality is that those times as an athlete are not the norm--and the performances should be cherished, along with the rewards that go with them.

Since that performance at Ironman Arizona, I've had some difficulty with racing, training, and injury, but I've also had some very positive signs.  Earlier this year, I PR'd my half marathon on a crazy-ass hilly course.  I PR'd my half-ironman bike split (both by wattage and time) on the way to my second fastest half-ironman ever.  I've identified and am working to corrections in my swimming training that should result in an up-ramp in my speed, and I'm seeing those results in workouts.  In all likelihood, I am probably faster than I have ever been before in triathlon.

The problem at this point is the work/life/triathlon balance.  I'm traveling a lot for work.  Brian and I are remodeling large portions of our house, and I lack time due to commuting and work issues that are somewhat out of my control. These are normal problems, and they are transient in nature.  The key to them is to keep them transient in nature, and not let them become the status quo.  I have witnessed the result of burnout both in my professional career and in my athletic endeavors, and that is not a path anyone wants to go down.  I had a discussion with Joanna, my coach, about this year about my complicated travel schedule, and she has been a strong voice of reason and incredibly patient with me.  The bike workouts are in maintenance mode, and I think I'm harder on myself about missing workouts than Joanna is on me.  That's life--there are only so many hours in a day, and only so much cumulative mental and physical stress you can place on a given person.



And I am no stranger to stress and anxiety--but I've found a somewhat unusual tool to battle with it.  My time spent on the 405 back and forth to work each day was an hour of bumper to bumper traffic each way, and added to the overall level of agitation I had in my life.  Over the course of a couple of years, I found that my problems with depression and anxiety were fueled more by the anxiety side of things, and that, instead of anti-depressants, with their host of side effects, the simpler answer was Klonopin, which is in the same family as Xanax but longer lasting in nature. Until very recently, I had resigned myself to the concept of potentially being on this drug for life.  And then my parents came into town and my Mom inspired me to pick up a knitting project I had left to the wayside a couple of years ago.  And that knitting project reminded me just how therapeutic the process is.  The rhythmic nature of the work is sedating, while the work itself involves your mind just enough to simultaneously distract it while letting it work through thoughts without wrapping your mind in a negative feedback loop.  It's the same place you get to when things are clicking during a good workout, or a good race--and the big difference is that I can do it twice a day, every day, while sitting on the train on the way back and forth to work.

So, I finished a pair of gloves...and I'm working on something else right now--and I'm reducing my dosage of Klonopin, with the idea of getting completely off it at some point in the future.  Klonopin withdrawal is a bitch--and it takes months to taper off it completely and safely. So, this is normal.

And I had a really good run this morning, and a good swim yesterday.  I'd say I'm standing up that eighth time, whether or not I fell for a seventh.