Energy

    I have taken it upon myself, at the spry age of seventy-one, to add another event to my repertoire of things I enjoy embarrassing myself with in public.

    I flail through 5Ks, 10Ks, half marathons, full marathons, fondos, and duathlons like an infant monkey on crack trying to learn how to walk a tightrope. Now I’ve decided to add swimming to the list so I can compete in my first triathlon.

    Why did I decide this was an epic plan in my current advanced state of cardiac issues and arthritis?

    Hell, I have no idea.

    But if I search way, way back into the darkest, slime-coated cesspool of my memory—also known as being honest—I believe it might, possibly, have something to do with location and fashion.

    Location, in the sense that I moved away from the ass-freezing cold element known as Chattanooga, Tennessee, and back to the I had no idea I could lose this much water through sweat and still remain technically alive climate of Central Florida.

    Fashion, in the sense that during my last duathlon at Fort De Soto, I happened to buy a tri suit from Playtri.

    Why did I buy a tri suit for a duathlon?

    Dude, have you ever seen a really expensive tri suit?

    When I put it on, I looked like I was going trick-or-treating dressed as a Technicolor, full-body condom. That being said, I looked pretty damn cool.

    At least to me. And, really, isn’t that the only audience that matters when you’re seventy-one years old and voluntarily wrapping yourself in aerodynamic Lycra?

    I do have just a shred of self-respect left over from my less worldly, less educated adolescent self. Back in those innocent days, I believed people were only assholes because they were having a bad day and that the government was here to help.

    Adorable, wasn’t I?

    But even now, I don’t think it’s dignified to wander around a transition area—or stand at the post-race banana table—perfectly dry while wearing a tri suit and acting as though I accomplished something I hadn’t. Yes, yes, I know. No one in the world, let alone anyone guarding the bananas, could possibly care less what I was wearing or which particular level of athletic self-abuse I had slogged through.

    But I knew. And apparently the banana knew.

    Consequently, I recently took advantage of a cloudless Central Florida day with a heat index of 108 degrees and trekked down to the community pool to see what this whole swimming thing was about. I can attest, ladies and gentlemen, that it is about one hell of a lot more than I thought.

    Although I’ve been able to swim for as long as I can remember, I quickly discovered that what I had actually been doing all these years was a reasonably competent job of not drowning and a truly horrible job of swimming. These are apparently two entirely different skill sets.

    I promise to regale you with my aquatic journey in future posts, but the main reason for my rambling tome on this fine day is energy.

    Today, after turning previously placid pool water into a frothing cauldron through 300 meters of spasmodic gesticulation, I was hanging onto the side of the pool sucking air and quietly cursing the Creator for failing to give humans gills.

    It was then that I realized I was adding yet another discipline to racing—one that would require me to consciously ration energy across three sports while still making sure I didn’t leave anything on the course. Well, nothing except saline, the will to live, half-digested caffeine chews, and possibly the contents of that morning’s breakfast.

    When I first started this competitive insanity at sixty-five, I ran 5Ks and remained amazed that anyone—regardless of age, species, or religious conviction—could run one of those things twice and call it a 10K.

    As I pushed myself toward bigger challenges, the one thing that stood out to me as the major difference between sprint racing and multisport or distance racing was the need to ration energy.

    I loved riding bikes. I would climb aboard my 1903 Trek penny-farthing and scream around St. Petersburg as fast as I possibly could until, completely spent and exhausted, I would struggle to get back home. This was not a race strategy. It was barely even transportation.

    It also wasn’t particularly productive training unless the goal was to become extremely good at riding twenty miles from home and then regretting every decision that had led me there.

    It took time—and some secondhand patience I picked up at Goodwill—to develop the discipline I needed to compete intelligently. With that discipline, I learned how to pace myself according to the sport.

    Eventually, my cardiovascular ability reached a point where I could run the first stage of a duathlon hard, leave almost everything on that first kilometer, and then recover during the bike portion. My heart rate would settle while I was in transition, and I could get my breathing under enough control to ride the bike portion intelligently and strategically instead of mounting the bike while seeing God.

    During the transition back to the 5K run, I learned to give myself until I exited transition before forcing my legs to accept the fact that they were no longer turning a bicycle crank.

    Your legs do not take this news well. For the first few hundred yards, they behave like union workers who have just been informed that management changed the job description without consulting them.

    It took a lot of practice to distribute that energy evenly when I started doing long-distance racing.

    While training for distance events, I would begin with an easy BPM—beats per minute, because I run to a specific musical beat—way down in the 140 range and then see how I felt afterward. Eventually, I learned that I could use something around 180 BPM for sprint distances and around 150 for marathons and half marathons.

    At that pace, I could run an entire half marathon and complete a full marathon while walking through aid stations for gels, water to trail-bathe in, and Gatorade or Powerade.

    I say “trail-bathe” because after about mile eighteen, I’m no longer drinking all the water. Some of it goes over my head, some down my back, some into my shoes, and some apparently gets offered as a sacrifice to whatever god oversees swollen knees and questionable life choices.

    If you’re just starting to race at any level, one of the first things you need to learn is a pace you can maintain through the entire event and still cross the finish line knowing you put everything you had into it. The goal isn’t to explode out of the starting chute like a Labrador that heard the garage door open, only to spend the last half of the race negotiating with your internal organs for mercy and continued service.

    Control the energy.

    Spend it wisely.

    And try to save just enough to cross the finish line looking as though this was all part of the plan.

Even when everyone knows it wasn’t.

RIDE ON!