From Sole to Soul: The Burnout

Monday, July 27, 2009

The Burnout

Here I was fearing burnout and I think I just finished the strongest ride of my training. I had a brick today of swim-bike but my work schedule is throwing me off and I didn’t get my swim in today. I was also extremely exhausted from a weekend of waitressing so my plan was to crash on the couch tonight and do nothing. But I talked myself out of it, got up, got dressed, headed out in wonderful weather for a ride and now I feel good! Really good.

The triathlon is a little over a month away and I’ve been worried that I’m getting burnout on my training. I think it’s a lack of motivation—I’m suddenly tired of doing all of this myself. I feel as if I have been pushing myself for so many weeks and that inner motivation is gone. It’s so much easier to become complacent and swim the same stroke, or ride on the same rhythm, or run the same pace. Lately, between being down with the flu, exhausted and almost burn-out, I keep questioning if I’m even going to finish this race. If I’m going to get better, or if I’ll always stay at this pace. If I want to keep going after this and do another, and another, and another…

And no matter how crappy I feel, I keep hearing something whisper in my heart “Keep training. Keep pushing. Keep racing.” Oftentimes it’s a jumble and I would much rather be complacent, but I know that won’t get me anywhere. And so I get up, dress myself with passion, and face the day. Near the end of my ride I turned into a neighborhood with this gigantic hill. Let me tell you, I don’t know the grade but I’m pretty sure this was almost straight up. It was maybe 100m total climb but there was no way I was riding the bike up it. So I jumped off and ran it up. Whoa did I feel the burn! But I didn’t feel like I gave up by not riding. (Normally I would) Instead, I felt stronger. And when I jumped back on to finishing cycling… there was no burnout left. I felt free.

(I’m also hoping new running shoes might help a little too. I picked up some bright yellow ones and I’m going for the fifteen day test run. I’ll either break them in for the race, or not like them, find a new pair and still have time to break them in.)

“I will never know myself until I do this on my own. I will never feel anything else until my wounds are healed. I will never be anything until I break away from me. I will break away. I’ll find myself today. “

-Linkin Park

2 comments:

AnonymousJuly 28, 2009 at 8:22 PM
sounds like u at ur wall but u gotta keep pushin through it cuz at some point it will come down. what's worse...a case of the blah's or that crapy feelin u'd have if u gave up and just sat on ur couch and got lazy? from experience that lazy feeling sucks!! so don't go there. keep pushin!

-Ross
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AnonymousAugust 11, 2009 at 11:19 AM
LOVE the Linkin Park quote...I may have to steal it :-( I need some of that healing too.

Hope you're well!
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Monday, July 27, 2009

The Burnout

2 comments:

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