Gratitude & Acceptance: The Keys to Endurance Performance
Oh no, you might say, another sober guy talking about Gratitude and Acceptance and how we all need more of these two things if we want our lives to become any better. I know, I have been there while looking at blogs on recovery and mental health. The topic is drab and glum and furthermore, it’s freaking impossible! So, I’m not going to talk about how essential these two virtues have been for my recovery and mental health. Instead, I’d like to show you how they have helped me to become the athlete I always dreamed of but never believed in.
“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.”
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”
The Early Days
I felt a surge of confidence, hope and power when I hopped out of the pool a little more than mildy winded. I was so eager to tell my new wife that I was going to become an Ironman. She was going to be married to an Ironman. All of a sudden a self-image I carried around as a child came back. I used to use a group of grandiose fantasy self-image’s to prevent me from the self-loathing gender confused and sexually conflicted fear riddled little boy that I felt deep within my soul and when I told my wife I was going to be an Ironman it all came back like a knight in shining armor. I was once again protected from the person I felt I was inside by someone I made up in my mind.
As a child I did more than idolize Elvis Presely, I lived, breathed, and ate like I was Elvis. When I put on my jeans with a white satin shirt and strapped on my guitar, I did more than act, I believed I was the King of Rock. Later when I took LSD and a handle of Jack Daniels, I believed that I was Jim Morrison. When I shot my arm up with heroin while listening to Nirvana in my headphones while closing my eyes in the grungy filth stained florescent light flickering gas station bathroom that I frequented in Missoula, MT I believed that I was Kurt Cobain. I have always had an amazing ability to detach from who I am and embody who I believe I should be. However, I was still me no matter how hard I believed I wasn’t.
When I strutted home to tell my wife I was going to be an Ironman, I already had abs of steel, legs that could withstand hours of pavement pounding and a heart that could maintain an ungodly pulse for six plus hours. I believed this and after downloading my first training plan, I went out to embody this. But no matter how hard I believed it, I wasn’t.
Rude Awakening
There were many times I would wake up the next morning and realize that my public stunts were not accepted and would never be glorified like the debauchery of some of my idols. I remember stripping my clothes off while standing on a concrete wall and screaming to a group of people that all we needed was love. I’m sure no one kept that image and chiseled it into the annals of greatness like the time Jim Morrison flashed the crowd in Miami.
The morning after I woke up after my first treadmill run was no different. I couldn’t move. I couldn't swing my legs out of bed. I had to ask Jess to put my socks on for two weeks. I had literally destroyed my calves and achilles tendon and shredded something that connected my lower back to my IT band. I broke down. Soon thereafter I had a relapse. I can’t say that this is what caused that relapse- but I’m fairly certain that the clashing of reality with the instant strong ironman played a large role. Oh should I mention that I also saw myself as a fully recovered alcoholic and was trying to sponsor other men without even working through the program that I was trying to sponsor them through?! Oh wait, I said this wasn’t going to be about recovery- lets get back to athletics.
A Coaches call
I wanted to be a triathlete. It was clear that I was ready to do whatever it took to get there. Once I was able to walk I hobbled down the street into the local AA meeting I frequented. I was late because the walk took 3x longer than usual. When I arrived I fell into a chair more like liquid than human being. After the meeting, I climbed the stairs emerging from the coffee stained basement where the meeting was held by hoisting myself up each level using both arms on the banister while baring my teeth from the struggle. A man saw me and asked what was wrong.
“Nothing”
“Why are you walking like that then?”
“Oh, I just ran a little to hard”
This man just happened to be a 8x Ironman triathlete and a 35 year sober warrior.
He responded, “Well that’s not how you are supposed to walk after running hard.” He paused and made eye contact with me. I knew he was an Ironman and I secretly looked up to him. But I wasn’t about to ask for help. In my mind I was already strong enough and trained enough to take on a 140.6 mile race. I was equal, if not better than the 0.01% of the world population who have completed an Ironman race since they started on that fateful day of Feb. 18, 1978.
After the pause he questioned, “Why were you running so hard?”
“I’m training for an Ironman.”
At that moment he chuckled with a stern, conniving look on his face, Like a person who just farted and knows that you are about to smell it, and he said coolly, “I’m going to help you out, Call me in about 30-minutes, Mark.”
By the time I walked the 2 blocks to my home 30-minutes had passed. He is a rather intense fellow and I knew it would be easier to hear what he had to say on the phone than in person. I was mildly let down.
He answered and quickly said, “okay Mark, download the training peaks app and add me as a coach. I am going to give you workouts.” Immediately after I said ok he hung up.
I was shocked to see the next couple of workouts that he had planned. I actually laughed and to myself with my nose high said they were way too easy. The first workout was a 45 minute “easy” run. I didn’t know you could run, “easy” the two words didn’t make sense in the same sentence for me. The following day was a 30 minute swim without stopping. Okay, now this was a little more challenging for me. I was still out of breath from my first 6 laps and dreading the pool. But then I looked at the next week. All of a sudden the 45-minute run was to be followed by an hour easy bike ride. hmm I thought- that is kind of time consuming, but I should be able to do it. Then I looked a couple of weeks in advance, still 5 months out from Wilmington 70.3 Ironman race. I looked at the bike workout and it was almost a page long of all out intervals for 1.5 hours and right after it I was supposed to run for another 1.5 hrs and with 15 minutes all out 8 minutes jog 15 minutes all out 8 minutes jog 15 min all out 8 minutes jog etc etc etc. There was no way. My ego deflated for a moment and then I said I would talk to him tomorrow and ask if he was kidding.
I didn’t see him the next day until I was on the treadmill for my “easy” run. I was basically sprinting. He said, “is that easy?”
“No” I huffed back as sweat shot from my upper lip
“then start going at a pace that feels easy!”
He walked away and reluctantly I cranked down the speed of the treadmill to a pace slower than the 72 year old man next to me who was running with a smile on his face while I was gagging.
The next day I was mysteriously able to walk and carry about my daily routine. I was also able to complete my next workout. I venture to say if he had not called me out to decrease the speed of the treadmill I would have missed the next week, if not more, of training. I would surely have not built up enough strength to withstand the intervals that were coming up.
So I slowed down. I touch on this in the article, “Tortoise and the Hare " But when I wrote the article I still didn’t know much.
Humility Check
For days on end I followed his training plan up until a week or two out from my first Olympic triathlon. Up to that point I was rocking the gym and strutting around like I owned the cycle studio. I’d hop of the bike and run over to the treadmill, pump out my miles and sweat harder than anyone in the gym. I was going to win this little ity bity olympic sized triathlon. I was on my path to be an Ironman.
Two minutes into the swim I choked, rolled over on my back and finished the remainder mile on my back. I got on the bike and by mile 10 felt like 6 inch needles shaped as fishhooks were being stabbed into my bone each time my leg extended and being pulled out each time it contracted to make the full circle of the peddle stroke. The run was no different. Numbing pins and needles up and down my legs. I felt like I was a running pin cushion for the last 6 miles of the course. I finished 76th out of 82 contestants and 6 of them didn’t finish, meaning I was dead last.
Fast forward a couple of months, Wilmington 70.3 Ironman was cancelled due to hurricane Florence. FEWF. I needed more time to train. For the past 15 years I had been smoking pills and cocaine on tin foil, washing it down with booze while enjoying a cigarette, and only running if… well I didn’t ever run. I remember one day early in our marriage Jess and I were walking across the street. A car started to approach and I ran about 8 strides. She exclaimed, “HAHA- Mark Turnipseed just ran, I have never seen you run.” I remember feeling cool about it- I was too calm of a person to have to run. But deep inside I was shocked and felt stricken with shame because it was true. I never exerted any effort beyond what was comfortable and I needed to accept that I had a long way to go.
Sometime right after that race was canceled I turned corners. I realized that I was not an Ironman. I was a recovering drug addict alcoholic, not an Ironman. As Michael J Fox stated above, “Acceptance does not mean resignation, it means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it.” I finally met my baseline. I knew at that point that I needed to put even more structure to my workouts so that I could actually grow. I needed professional help. So I contacted Steven Moody from Smart Endurance Solutions over in Ireland and he began working with me on a training plan that used my heart rate.
Follow your damn heart
The workouts that followed all had a designated heart rate zone for me to follow. My intervals were based on heart rate data, rather than perceived effort: Hard, easy, medium. This was necessary for me because I didn’t understand a workout that had the words medium or easy attached to them. But then my heart rate started telling me to slow down. Now I was pissed. I was also not making the times I wanted to on my runs. So a few days ago I asked Mr. Moody if it was okay if I just paid attention to the pace and disregarded the heart rate since they weren’t matching up. Of course the reply back was short and sweet, “Pace/time is just a placeholder - always go by HR first and foremost.” Shit, I thought to myself. That means in the workouts where it says, “warm up- HR in zone 1 for 10 minutes,” meant I actually had to go that slow.
Now just wait for it…
I have been using Mr. Moody’s plan for 3 months and the whole time I have not warmed up in zone one. I have also not been able to finish many of the main sets that follow these warm ups at the desired heart rate of 165. I kept getting so down on myself and began getting angry at everything. Jess would ask me how the workout went and I would hiss back, “horrible, I can’t keep a solid pace.” She would then just go about her day without entertaining my pity party. Then it struck me and I said to myself. You know what, I’m just going to listen to my heart and be glad that I’m able to run 10, 12, 14 miles at a time without stopping. Just over a year ago Jess had said she had never seen me run and honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I did either. Now I was lacing up at 6 am and enjoying sunrises while jogging.
Gratitude works
This morning I set out on my long run, grateful. I decided to accept my heart rate for what it showed me and plug along through my warm up. I crested the top of my first hill and was going at a pretty slow pace, but it was a hill, and I was running it. Awestruck at the fact I had just ran over a hill I looked in front of me and saw the sunrise climbing over the mountain looking like a sunny side up egg on a tuff of broccoli. Down the hill I ran, keeping my heart rate in check.
10 minutes later my watch told me the main set had arrived. I needed to speed up and keep my heart rate in zone 4 with the ideal pace between 7:30 min/mile and 8:10 min/mile and I had to do this for an hour, on hills. I had been dreading my failure of this task all night, but seeing the sun splatter across the mountains and into the prairie that I ran I decided to just give it a go. My watch rang a notification: “1 mile: 7:35” and I had been going uphill. I was shocked. A couple minutes later my watch rang again: “2 miles: 7:42” and it rang again, and again, and again- each time below 8 minutes. For 7 more miles I was shocked at each one. Could this really be happening? I finished the morning run out strong and smiling. Not only had I completed the workout- but I had done it in the pace Mr. Moody designed for me to work up to. I came home all excited.
It is true: “Gratitude does unlock the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.” And in fact I would like to add one additional thing that it can do because now I see it working- it also has the potential of turning an addict alcoholic into an Ironman. I now believe in the process moreso than the goal and to me this is one step further from the Trials and one leap closer to the Triathlon.