Do you fight or do you flee?

Most of us have heard of the fight or flight (freeze) response to stress. In simple terms, it represents physiological changes in the body in response to stress such as increase muscular activation, increased HR, blood going away from organs and toward the big muscles, etc. Although the physiological manifestations of the "fight and the "flight" are identical, the behavioral elements are not. Behaviorally, "fight" is manifested in aggressive behaviors, while "flight" is manifested as fleeing threatening situations. Simply put, the "fight" means doing something about the situation, dealing with it, while the "flight" means escaping and withdrawing.

How does this relate to racing?

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, as I have pondered over past races, over how I behave now as a runner, and how I view myself as a triathlete. When I first started running I lacked confidence. I set low expectations, and was paralyzed by the desire to flee. (Research has shown that women have a tendency to flee - escape, turn to others for help, diffuse the situation - while males tend to fight-respond with aggression). I have worked hard at this over the years, and I can now, for the most part, push the "flee demons" away, channel my aggression, and race hard. It is much harder for me to do this in triathlon. I am still very intimidated. I need to work much harder for my inner aggressor. But I tend to find it, usually. I remember how terrified I was of the HIM swim last summer, and how I rehearsed being aggressive in the water; i ended up having a great swim, and no terror, which was rare for me last year.

So my point is, if you have a tendency to flee, if you get intimidated in races, try to channel your inner aggressor. It is quite amazing the difference that can make. Women tend to have a hard time with aggression, we are socialized to be nice, but if being nice is something that is important to you, be nice after the race. During the race, be aggressive and use the adrenaline to fuel your speed!

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My knees are doing better. I look like I got a beating, but I am fine. I had a great 50+ mile bike ride this morning followed by an awesome 5 miler run and mile swim. I looked rather frightening with one of my knees purple and double the size of the other one, but I did not care. I had no pain, so I was happy! So mom, yes, I really am FINE!

Oops, I did it again!

Remember how over the summer I slipped on my bathroom floor and ended up with a bruised back bone that lasted over a month? Well, I did it again!

I woke up early this morning in order to attempt to trash my legs during a 60 min high gear trainer workout, before heading out for a 14 mile run with the Fresh Pond Race in the middle. The ride went well, I transitioned quickly into shorts, tank top and arm warmers (65 degrees today!!!), and headed out. I was happy, listening to music, thinking about the fun day we had planned for today. About 1.5 miles in I tripped, landed on my knees and hands, and rolled on my shoulder. Five people ran to me to help, which makes me feel good about living in this neighbourhood - people care. I was actually fine, except that my R knee was bleeding badly, and my L knee looked purple-ish. I also had some road rash on my R leg, shoulder, and both my hands. I really did not care about these, though. I was concerned with my run. I moved my legs, jumped on them, and they seemed fine. I washed my knees up (beauty of carrying my own water), and started running. In the next mile I decided that I was going to finish the run, but would skip the race - my L knee was tight. At mile 7 I turned around and took a look at my knees. The R was bloody, the L was swollen and looked like it grew a baby knee on top. Funny how I had only some tightness in my L knee until I saw the swelling. After that, I started having pain. Funny how powerful the mind is, don't you think? I convinced myself that I was fine, nothing was broken, and the swelling was due to bleeding inside my knee, and was fine getting home. I did take some pics once I got home, but they are really disgusting, so no need to post them:) I took an ice bath and Chris was sweet and let me sit on the couch with my feet elevated until we had to go to a party this afternoon. I think I am going to be fine. The L knee is still pretty swollen, but I am hoping to be able to ride long tomorrow morning. It is kind of funny how I have not gotten a running injury in so long, but I somehow manage to hurt myself in the funniest ways, on fairly regular basis!

Hope your weekend was less eventful:)

Busy

It's been super busy over here. Between work, extra work every single night, parenting and training, I had no time to blog. I do read all your posts on my phone - and look forward to their company on my morning T ride - but have not been commenting much. I'll do better next week:)

Training has been going well. I have been running mostly easy since the HM 2 weeks ago, but managed a sweet tempo, almost effortless, @ planned 10K pace. Nice. Tomorrow I am back racing at Fresh Pond. Don't expect a PR, as I will be biking for an hour before. My goal for the next few weeks is not to get faster; rather, am working on getting my brain used to running on tired legs. Typically my brain wants me to slow down when my legs get heavy. But in triathlon I will start to run on tired legs, so I need my brain to get used to that and let me run like I know how.

Swimming is going swimmingly! I am getting so strong, thank you paddles! I love, love, swimming with paddles and no kick. I am convinced that swimming with paddles has made me not only faster, but also more efficient by improving my form. I am also swimming 4 miles + a week now, with one long swim of 2 miles (for now). This is not much for triathletes, but it is a lot for me.

Biking is also getting better. I had my bike adjusted and it feels much better. No saddle pain. I am excited for a long ride this weekend. My rides outside are more challenging, but also more fun. I am having a hard time going into zone 3 on the trainer, but no problem going on zone 3 or higher while on the road.

That's it, folks, nothing that interesting! Looking forward to tracking all the Boston runners! Post your nr so I can find you!

Here we go

We are having a spell of rain over here, but the weekend was gorgeous. I ran and biked in shorts and it was wonderful. I am still taking it easy with my runs, but I finally feel I am getting my running legs back. I have been doing a lot of biking and am getting used to my tri bike. I am falling in love with tri training, and am working out my racing season. There is so much I want to do aside from my upcoming half ironman. I want to do some trail races, I want to do a few sprints and olympic triathlons, maybe another half ironman, a 10K, and of course, my fall marathon! I am not sure I am going to be able to fit everything in, mostly because I want to take lots of trips in the White Mountains with Petru and Chris. Petru is old enough to hike now, and I am excited to show him the beauty of the mountains. I have been hiking since I was 4, took my first 3 days hiking trip with my dad in the Carpathians when I was 6, and have always loved climbing mountains. Petru is not the most athletic kid - he'd rather watch or read about what makes traffic lights and clocks work - he has shown interest in hiking and has enjoyed little adventures in the Fells and Blue Hills. It's time for more! So these adventures with him will take priority this summer, though if I plan them for August marathon training will fit right in:)

I am yet again struggling with my athlete identity. Runner? Triathlete? I am competitive as a runner, and obviously this motivates me. But, I get burned out when I just run. I've enjoyed training for my fall marathon up to the point where I stopped biking and swimming; then it became much less enjoyable. I am not competitive as a triathlete and am not confident I will ever be. At the same time, swimming and biking make me happy, make my body happy, and have helped me stay injury free (I think). Biking has also made hill running much easier as I have developed strong quads. Swimming has given me strong core and arms. I know I am new to triathlon so I should not put limits on myself, so I won't. And I can certainly do what I have been doing, train for half marathons/5ks in the winter, while building a triathlon base, race triathlons during the summer, and then train for a marathon while doing more running races. Eventually, I'll settle in a rhythm!

Off to read "How things work" to my little guy! I tell you, I am learning a lot in the process:)

March by the numbers

March went by so fast. It gave me a few PRs, but it left me tired and heavy legged.

RUN: 232 miles
BIKE: 25hours and 40 min (includes one week of no biking to taper for the run)
SWIM: 12.75
STRENGTH: 2 hours
PLYOS: none (boo!)

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Last week I switched gears toward triathlon training. I am cutting my runs to 5 instead of 6/week, increasing my biking to 4-5 instead of 3/week (will see how my privates will hold up to that, so far 4 has been manageable), trying to ride outside as much as possible (it is much harder for me to ride outside, and I am very slow!), swimming a long 2 miles+ session/week (this has become one of my favorite things), swimming with paddles (I am so much faster with them, and if I cheat with a pull buoy, I feel unstoppable).

I had an encouraging ride outside today. I managed to get down in aero, but it was very hard. I am going to take my bike to the shop and see if we can change the aero setup to make it less aggressive. I am currently set up to be very aerodynamic, but I doubt I will be able to take advantage of that for now. I need to lift the bars up a bit to make it easier to use them. Today I forgot to take my underwear of when I went for a ride, and it was pure torture. I will not make that mistake again.

I am so excited to go away with Chris in a few weeks. Although sad to miss some of the Boston runners, I am excited to go away and spend some quality time with Chris. This winter it's been mostly me working on the computer and him watching basketball in the evenings, in the same room, but not really interacting. We did not have any time for ourselves since the summer.

It's snowing in Boston. My back yard is already white. For some reason, this is not driving me crazy!

Tuesday Thoughts

* Can someone please teach me how not to be stupid? After running nice and easy (and little) last week to recover my running legs, I put myself back on a plan of 5 (instead of 6) runs/week (to have more time for swims and bike rides). Yesterday it was speed day, 10 miles easy with 8X30 seconds @ 3K-10K pace. I went to the track. The track is dangerous. The track pushes my buttons and makes me run fast. It is really the track's fault that I ended up running 8X 200 meters @ 4:30-4:50, with 200 m easy running in between. They felt great! My cadence was very high and I used my arms for a change (I never use them). But, today reality hit. MY a$$ is on fire and my legs are sore! I ran 12 miles easy this evening but even an 8:56 average pace did not seem slow enough for my tired legs. Live and learn.

* I am not picking my son up early anymore. We end up waiting around for 20 min for his best friend's mom to arrive so that they can leave together. I also must learn to eat a big snack before picking him up as we end up staying at the playground with his little friends way over dinner time and I get cranky when I am hungry.

* I biked for 10 hours last week. Not much for most, but a lot for me. 95% of it was on the trainer, though:)

* I biked for 2.5 hours on Sunday, ran 5 miles (in shorts, and froze) and then Chris and I went outside to bike for a bit. This was my second attempt to riding my tri bike outside. It was windy and I really felt the push from the wind. I almost made it in the aero bars - half way - and managed to shift. I call this progress. I was mad, however, and told Chris to try the bike and see how unstable it is. He got on my 51 cm bike, all 6'1'' of him, and proceeded to ride in aero laughing his face off. I love him, but I hated him then. Here is the thing, as a kid, I ran everywhere - after the bus, away from my brother, etc and raced the boys on the street for fun. I was fast. I did not bike (or swim) so I don't have that comfort on the bike that someone like Chris, who grew up biking and has been bike commuting all his life has. But, I will get there! I learned to swim and am quite comfortable in the water now. I can certainly get comfortable on my tri bike. This is my new challenge!

* Chris and I will take advantage of the 3 day weekend coming up in April and drive to New Hampshire to ride the bike course of Mooseman. I am so excited! This means that I will track all you Boston contenders on my phone, so you better post your numbers when you have them. I'll most likely run Boston next year again.

* I am starting to fantasize about spending some long hours on trails this summer in between my half ironman and the beginning of marathon training. I always want to run trails but somehow that fails to happen.This year I'll make it happen and also build endurance and build a nice base for my fall marathon.

I get it now!

This past week I have been thinking a lot about my running. I still can't believe that I managed to run such fast races this winter. My brain is yet again a little slow in its ability to process what my body can do. And letting the body lead has been the trick this year, I think. You see, I have always been a cautious runner, as I have always been cautious in my life (no regrets, it has served me well:). I have always planned my training in a way that I thought would bring me to a goal. For a marathon, that meant running at least one 20 miler at MP. For a half, 10 miles at close to HMP. While this strategy was successful for the most part - it gave me confidence and control over my race - it also put limits to what I accomplished. I see it now.

Before I move on, I need to say that I do not believe in intuition. I think intuition is one of those overused and misunderstood pop psychology term. Intuition is so popular because our brains tend to remember the situations when our "intuition" was right, as opposed to the many other situations in which it was wrong. That, and Oprah!. I am very analytical. I like thinking. I like formulas (to the point where I even tried to convince my husband that he should create a formula to help him remove the random error from his picks in his fantasy basketball - to which he rightly replied that I should get my own team).

So when I heard many experienced runners and triathletes talk about throwing the Garmins away and running by feel I thought (silently) all of that was crap. My formula worked, my Garmin 2/3o5 never let me down, so why change things? Plus, running by feel seemed a bit like letting your "intuition" tell you what to do, and you know how I feel about intuition.

But then something happened this winter. With all my racing at Fresh Pond, and this horrible snow, I did not run my 10 miles @ HMP. I was a ball of nerves before the first HM race, had low expectations, and just went with it. I let go off the control. Shut my brain down. And I surprised myself. Then, I did the same at Quincy. Heck, my PR at Quincy was on a 6:46 average pace while my PR at Fresh pond was on a 6:40 pace for 5 miles! That would not have happened had I not let go.

I am not sure how to call the "let go", how to conceptualize and frame what I am trying to say. Perhaps this is the "running by feel" method. What I know is that my body gets fit quickly and my brain can't keep up with that. Sure, I can try to help my brain catch up to my body, and I have tried that strategy successfully for Baystate last fall. But I think what I did this winter may work even better: letting my body decide the pace, checking in with all the systems (breathing, strike, etc) that the pace is something that I can hold, and then convincing the brain to let go. As I write this, I see that I am trying to make this concrete and 'thinky", but it is not. It is a state of flow perhaps, where my body moves through paces based on terrain, checks in with all the systems and adjusts without conscious control. I can replay my last race in my head, and it is amazing that: 1) I listened to music but have no memory of the songs, and 2) I don't remember really pushing or thinking positively, or encouraging myself like I normally do in races. I remember that I just ran.

So the lesson here for me, is to let go, to think less and give my body control over the run. The body knows best. This does not mean that I am not going to run with my Garmin. I think the Garmin is very useful. However, it is a secondary tool. My body knows better! I get it now!