So in light of my last post about being a beast, I think I am back to being a baby.
Saturday the Expert and I drove almost an hour to ride… when we showed up and I extracted Andie (the bike) out of the backseat, the dude says, “I forgot my shoes.”
Holy crapoly.
Which turned into a massive fight… lots of good quality stuff: I hate you. I hate your “Ironman” training. You’re a jerk. YOU’RE a jerk. You’re selfish. Just awful. So two hours later, the Expert and I had secured his cycling shoes and were at a new cycling locale, and both of us are just steaming mad. Try riding with your partner when you are steaming mad. Let me tell ya. AWESOME.
I was supposed to do 3 hours. We did 2:15. I almost killed a squirrel and nearly-crashed. That’s what you get, I’m sure the Expert was thinking.
Then the Expert was stung by a bee ahead of me—his leg went a flying and he screamed and cursed. That’s what you get, I was thinking. And I was so emotionally drained. I mean, fighting with someone for almost three hours can knock it out of you.
Suffice it to say, we were over each other. But it was Father’s Day (well, Sunday was… but he was heading out of town), so we took the kids out to dinner to celebrate and by the end of the night, seemed like we had cooled down.
That night, the Swim Bike Boy toddled downstairs and said, “I feel sick.”
He was standing in the living room, where we just have just retired the stained and torn college furniture in exchange for some adult furniture and a lovely rug… so when the kiddo says that, the Expert promptly marches him to the bathroom, and in one swoop, the grumble happened, and the kiddo blew chunks… straight into the toilet, with not a single mess.
Impressive. Very impressive. (Happy Father’s Day!)
So that’s how Saturday ended.
The Expert and I used to be the best riding buddies. But I was told on Saturday that I would no longer have a riding buddy in the Expert. So if any of you want to adopt me, let me know. 🙂
Right now, I have this upper respiratory madness going on, which has spun out of control from an allergic reaction to some food I ate… So–out of caution–I chose to skip yesterday’s work out. Then I woke up ready to run today, and the chest is worse. So that’s kind of a bummer.
But as Coach Brett said, “Do what you can. Don’t dig the hole deeper.”
So true. The snowball effect of plowing through when overly tired or sick never works out. So I feel sick. I feel tired, so I’m just listening to my body. I also had some killer workouts and work stress over the last week, so could be fatigue. Mental exhaustion. All of the above, check.
Training takes a ton of mental and physical effort. You have to dig deep to get through the tough stuff. Not to mention whatever life throws at you–work, family, etc.
It’s easy to say, “Aw hell, I missed two workouts, I am a FAILURE!” But that’s not productive.
I am done being so hard on myself.
(Yeah right. Okay, so I am working on it. I am really, really working on it.)
The battle of unworthiness rages on with me, but I also know that I am not alone with all the inside-the-head garbage. What has helped?
Recently, I have really started listening to my self-talk. When I stand buck-naked in front of the mirror, I have begun to open my brain-ears and listen to the things I say about myself. Wow.
What a freaking eye-opening exercise. I am not very nice to me. What an amazing exercise in finding out just how stupid and shallow and wrapped up in the trivial I can be.
My day is ruined by my belly fat. How incredibly stupid. And I really do, finally, recognize that.
So I know that I have made progress.
Because missing these two key workouts has not sent me into a tailspin of “you suck, Meredith” and “look at your giant gut, Two-Ton.”
I have been able to breathe, and move on. I am not digging myself deeper into a chasm of doubt and negativity. No matter how hard my instincts want that.
So moving on. Forward and all that. Rather productively, I might add.
It also helps to have a daughter… where I am forced to say nice things to myself all the time… so I can make sure not to do the body-image damage to her. What an incredible responsibility. One that is not lost on me.
I once had a huge fight with a boyfriend when we were trying to fly a kite together. Looking back pretty funny. Sorry your day was a mess. Don’t mess with respiratory infections. Heal up – get stronger. Drop the guilt.
It isn’t easy to give ourselves credit and focus on the positive. I read an article recently about how a mother’s body image influences how her daughter will see her own body. This was my biggest wake up call. My daughter is almost 5. I can’t imagine her living her life with the negative self image like the one of I have of myself. It was the thought of this that made me want to change my habits. Now, I try (very hard) to look at my body and find the positives. I see more definition in my muscles since becoming a triathlete (all due to your book), my tummy is getting flatter (slooooowly), and I feel the differences more than see them. This is how I have tried to make myself more positive about body image. It has helped, but it is still a struggle for me. We all do it….which is why we can all help each other!! Thanks for another inspirational post 🙂
One of the worst fights my hubby and I had was playing golf. I swore I would never never never play with him again. Time went by – we started playing again and became great playing partners. Time will heal it!
I am also trying to work on my negative self talk when it comes to my body image. I just finished my first 70.3 in Boulder this weekend and the excitement was almost imediately ruined by looking at the pictures my boyfriend had taken of me running across the finish line and thinking “look at the cellulite on my legs, omg, my hips look huge!”, instead of thinking “damn, i just finished something most people would never consider. Damn, that’s really awesome!”. It’s crazy that we do that to ourselvers. Our bodies are strong and capable of so much, yet we constantly nit pick.
Sorry you had a fight with the hubby. Not fun. My husband and I don’t usually do home projects together. We don’t work well together AT. ALL. And I will say it’s me that’s the problem. I like things done my way. We don’t run together either because he’s faster than me and I like running alone. I wouldn’t mind biking with someone though. May need to get him a bike.
My wife and I did Boulder 70.3 this past weekend too! No one looks great in tri clothing. No one.
My “Ironman” hubs and I seem to always fight while on our bikes… I enjoy the sites and don’t try to Kill myself while out riding…where as every time he is on his Blue… It feels like a race… This tends to leave my workout a bit more like a screaming and yelling match… Usually from the moment we put the bikes on the car to the moment we come screaming and screeching back to the car!!! Once he was on a ride w me and he got so mad he stopped riding to yell at me and just “tipped ” right over his Blue crashing to the ground w him still clipped to it aero bars clanging… I won’t soon forget that feeling… Poor hubs…. Poor Blue… My turn at ironman is coming 2015… My training partner and race partner will be our 18 yr old daughter… Hope that goes better lol 😉 it will be our first IM 🙂 woot
I did the same thing when I saw photos of myself completing my first ever event (off road duathlon). Instead of being stoked that I did it….I was worried about my hips and cellulite. So dumb!!
For what it’s worth, my husband and I can’t ride together anymore, either. Although he essentially taught me to ride several years ago, the amount of training that I do for 70.3 races has made me a much stronger rider. We tried to ride together some last year, and it ended up with me pulling over to wait for him, then when he caught up, he’d fly by and make me push to catch up, then he’d fall way back, repeat cycle. It wasn’t pleasant for either of us. I need to do my workouts, and he rides for fun, so we had to abandon our expectations of what it meant to ride together and do it separately. And we’re ok with that.
Triathlon/Ironman training is hard on everyone — athlete, spouse, and family members. Of course disagreements are going to happen, and it’s hard to remember in the throes of it all that our relationships are long-term, and training is short-term.
Hang in there!
I become a mean wreck when im too fatigued to train I start callin myself names in my head which eventually makes me not so nice to hubby ….not proud of it but my point is I know how much negative can come just from our own inner mean self talk . Almost like I think he said it coo coo.coo coo. He now knows when I need my exercise lol!
A friend of mine told me recently, “I am so mean to myself. I would NEVER say to any of my friends the horrible things I say to myself.” That conversation has really stuck with me and I remind myself of her revelation quite often.
Good for you for being so mindful of that little girl of yours. I have 3 boys and always thought, “I’d have to be so much more careful with my attitude over my appearance if I had girls.” In many ways, that is true. I have come to realize, though, that it is also so important for my boys to see me express a positive self-image. And so important for the girls they will build relationships with in the future.
Those two thoughts really keep me going. Be kind to yourself. Show your boys what is truly important. Not always easy, but so important.
GA400 century is on june29 with a variety of distances — great opportunity to ride supported without a partner ( sorry about your fight). I would love to ride with you, but I think your much faster than me 🙂
My hubby and I also seem to have major screaming fights every time we’re on the bikes. I think he has the worst bike etiquette, he goes too slow on hills, and on and on. But I do love him, and I try to be grateful for the times he joins me. But I’ve learned that if I want to get a training ride in, it’s best with my training group and not him. He just doesn’t cut it 😉
A month ago when I was having panic attacks in open water and ready to call it quits in the Tri-arena, my coach gave me some homework to do the night before my next Tri. I had to write down what I say to myself and how that made me feel when I say it. Then I had to say what I want to say to myself and how that would make me feel. HUGE DIFFERENCE! I would NEVER talk to my closest family member or friend, much less a stranger, that way, so why talk to myself that way? From there, I had to develop some motivational sayings to say to myself whenever those bad words arose. I have to say it works.
Girl, just drop me a note and I’ll bike with ya!
I have had more arguments with “The Sponsor” (read: fiance) around biking than any other sport. I finally got a new road bike to train with since it has been discovered that my trusty old mountain bike is a BEAST to ride! Hopefully that will end the conflict…
The only reason we don’t have more arguments while running is because I don’t have enough breath to scream at him! Running doesn’t come easy to me and I work 5X harder to push through a run than he does…and he is just so happy and chipper. I could trip him – I really could.
I love this tri-training, though! My tri-partner and I even have a “Team Name” with nicknames (mine is “Scuttlebutt” due to my road “shuffle” when I run.