Flow State

In three days, I’ll be standing on a riverbank in Rockford waiting for the start of a 70.3 triathlon. And despite telling everyone that this is just a training day, I’m low-grade panicking.

The weird thing is I know I can do it. My training plan actually called for an Olympic-distance race next week, but I couldn’t find one that fit my schedule, so the Rockford 70.3 looked interesting. So I signed up. As one does.

Objectively, I have the fitness. I’ve ridden the actual bike course twice. I’ve run 9 miles several times. I’ve easily swum the 1.2-mile distance. Putting all three together on the same day is different, but it’s not like I’m attempting something I haven’t done before. That’s what makes the anxiety so annoying. It’s not based on reality.

Part of it is that I keep reminding myself this isn’t really a race. It’s a supported training day. I don’t care about my finish time. I know I won’t PR. Looking at my old PR actually makes me laugh. Every time I see it I think, “Who the hell was that guy?” I’d be thrilled if I finished within an hour of that time.

But no matter how much I tell myself it’s just a training day, I know what’s going to happen. I’ll get out of the water feeling pretty good. I’m a decent swimmer and will probably come out in the top 15-20% of the field. Then the bike starts, and the passing starts. And it never stops.

I’ve written about this before, but it’s one of the things I dislike most about triathlon. The people who finish behind me come out of the water behind me. The people who finish ahead of me spend the next five or six hours riding and running past me. I almost never pass anyone. It’s surprisingly discouraging. I know it shouldn’t matter, but after the hundredth person blows by you on the bike, it’s hard not to feel like you’re doing something wrong.

The other thing I’m wrestling with is that I don’t actually like racing. I love training. I love the structure. I love checking off workouts. I love seeing my fitness improve. I love losing a few pounds and feeling healthier. But racing? I hate racing.

In hockey, baseball, basketball, golf, whatever, you practice and then you get to play the game. The game is the reward. Endurance sports are weird. You train for months and then your reward is doing the exact same thing, only harder and longer. There isn’t really a game. There’s just suffering.

And I’ve already done it. I’ve finished marathons. I’ve finished 70.3s. I’ve finished Ironmans. I don’t get the excitement of doing something for the first time. Which raises a legitimate question: why am I doing this again?

A friend of mine recently told my wife, after hearing I’d signed up for Rockford and Ironman Wisconsin, “He just doesn’t know when to come in out of the rain.” That one hit me pretty hard because it’s true. Apparently, I don’t know when to stop doing things I don’t like doing.

The encouraging thing is that I’m trying something new this time. Actually, I’m trying something that most people have been doing all along. I’m fueling. I’m hydrating. I’m pacing.

Looking back, my old race nutrition strategy was basically criminal negligence. On Ironman bike rides, I’d have two water bottles for over seven hours. Two. I’d eat half a sub sandwich at some point. Then I’d mostly survive the marathon on stubbornness and occasional sips of water.

In my last Ironman, a friend finally convinced me to take a caffeinated gel because I was mentally falling apart. Within minutes, I felt dramatically better. The fog lifted. The world seemed brighter. I was convinced the gel contained heroin.

When I explained my fueling history to Claude AI, I swear it laughed at me. The basic response was, “Ross, maybe your mental game isn’t terrible. Maybe you’re just starving.”

Fair point.

So now I have an actual fueling plan. I tested it on my second ride of the Rockford course. The ride was slower than the first attempt, but I felt dramatically better afterward. Not a little better. Dramatically better. I also have an actual pacing strategy. Historically, my pacing strategy was, “Whatever feels good.” It turns out that’s not really a strategy.

This time I’m going to keep my heart rate under a certain ceiling on the bike. If that means I ride five or ten minutes slower, so be it. The theory is that the bike sets up the run. You don’t win your race on the bike, but you can absolutely destroy your run there. On the run, I’m planning to walk the first minute or two until my heart rate settles, and then run about thirty seconds per mile slower than my normal pace. Slow and steady. Which is funny because I literally have a tortoise tattooed on my arm, yet I spend most races trying to be a hare.

The final thing I’ve done is reach out to a sports psychologist. It’s obviously too late for Sunday, but maybe a few conversations can help with the nonstop negative self-talk that has been hanging around for almost sixty years. Better late than never.

So that’s where I am three days out. Nervous. Excited. Dreading it. Looking forward to it. Wondering why I signed up. Glad I signed up. All at the same time.