One Week to Go

It's now one short week till my Ironman, and my thoughts are occupied with the last minute important details, such as what to wear in various possible weather scenarios, and what will I do with hair to ensure it does not become a source of irritation over the course of a 12-hour event (I have a time of 12 hours in my head inasmuch as I hope to finish somewhere around that mark, but as I have to keep reminding myself, I will be happy to finish upright and smiling).

My mindset is otherwise quiet in this final week of preparation. I am focused on eating well, eating light (hard to do after a summer of eating to keep up with an average of 20 hours a week of training), sleeping well and minimizing stress. I've been noticing a decrease in my ability to manage small daily stresses, like the bank not being open when I want it to be, or the baker running out of my favourite wholewheat minibagettes, or clients emailing me with questions that I've already given them an answer to, or swimmers who rest against the wall between sets in my lane when I want to flipturn, or what is my French landlady earnestly trying to tell me I need to do about my heating system to prepare it for the winter months and why is it so important when it's still 30C outside, or the increasingly unfavourable dollar to euro exchange rate which is calling for a review of my entire personal money-management strategy, or the obvious design flaw in my new mp3 player that prevents continuous play between playlists and how will I explain that in French when I try to return it, or why can't I figure out how to reprogram the digital clock on my oven after last week's power outage, and other other such minor crises of daily life. I'm attributing this decrease in stress-management ability (also known as 'being irritable') to a latent case of pre-race nerves that is resting just below the surface of my psyche, since I outwardly seem to be quite calm.

Another possible explanation comes from a book I'm currently reading by vegan triathlete Brendan Brazier. This observation has nothing to do with being vegan, it's simply an observation that he makes on one of the non-physical benefits of endurance training; he is comparing the effects of long training sessions, such as I have been doing at least once a week for the last six months, with the benefits associated normally associated with Yoga or traditional meditation:

Normally thought of as a good thing, information is in fact a problem in modern life. There is simply too much of it, most of it useless. And harmful. Yes, harmful. You may think you can just ignore useless information, but it occupies space in your consciousness and thereby slows the rate at which you can make use of information you actually need. Think of a computer's memory being filled up and cluttered by a constant bombardment of spyware downloads, resulting in a reduced processing speed.

If we retain only important information, the brain will be better able to process that information, make sense of it, solve problems, and allow the subconscious room to work...traditional meditation results in restricted information intake and thereby gives your brain a well-deserved break. Active meditation in the form of running and cycling provides an opportunity for the brain to mull over information it already has, while restricting entry of new information. No need to go on an information fast - a select information diet will enhance your brain's ability to form thoughts, make connections between ideas, solve problems and think clearly under stress.

(Brendan Brazier, Thrive Fitness)

It's true that I have solved some of my biggest and smallest problems while out on the bike or out for a long run. I typically have something that I have to write down straight away when I walk in the door, or a burning phone call to make or email to send. Going for walks or sitting in the cathedral isn't quite providing the same thing; they quieten my mind but they don't give rise to the same creative thought patterns that result in eureka moments (I'm attributing this to the absence of increased oxygen flow to the brain and/or repetitive body motions over long periods of time). In any event, I think I will just have to settle for being a little less mentally sharp and a little more irritable this week - and dare I let myself think this far ahead - for the several weeks of recovery time that will come after October 4th.