Any Rocky fans out there? Hell yeah! Everyone enjoys a good underdog story where, eventually, the hero faces a long-fought battle (complete with an impossible running scene) only to lose at the end. The story was so good that they had to make a sequel to let the hero win.
Well, this post doesn't start with Rocky I. Or Rocky II. Or Rocky III, which featured Mr. T as Clubby Lang (a fricken' great name for a antagonist if ever one was invented!). It begins with Rocky IV.
Rocky IV spent half of the movie following the previously beaten Apollo Creed (a fricken great name for a protagonist if ever one was invented!) in his quest to beat that commie Russian Ivan Drago. Well, Ivan (apparently) was on a better drug regime than the American (hard to believe). Rocky Balboa was watching the champ get pummeled by the great Red Hook. Other members of the entourage were calling for Rocky to throw the towel, which was a call from someone who's supposed to be on the good guy's team to end the match.
Spoiler Alert: Rocky never threw the towel and the champ died from his beating. Sad. On a happy note, it did leave the series a convenient opening to reboot the money machine several decades in the future, featuring the champ's son.
How does this relate to the Banter? The reigning champ (and I'm being generous here) is me and the commie bastard on high levels of steroids and giving me a beating that hits where the hurting's good is the 2019 race season. The season hadn't even started before I got my first big punch to the face, which manifested in a nice hamstring injury. Pow. Then I raced without adequate training. Bif. Then I raced again without adequate training. Sok. Then I raced again without adequate training. Blap.
It's taken its toll. Specifically it's smacking where it counts for me, in the run. Seriously, I haven't had decent run since the day before the injury. That's going on nearly 6 months now. And when I mean a decent run, I feel like I've been digressing even more so than normal. Allow me to explain...
Take a gander at a recent run that clocked in a just over 4 miles for 33 minutes of running averaging an 8:14 pace. On paper, this looks promising, right? When you look at the forest, you have to remember that there are trees. Glance at the data.
If you look at the elevation, you can see that it's stupidly flat. If you look at the pace, you'll notice that the pace is relatively consistent. Spoiler Alert 2: That's the ego talking there.
If you look at the heart rate and match it with the pace chart, you'll notice a few obvious anomalies. To count, you should see 6 of them, some closer to each other than others. Those are times when I stopped running. If I'm not running, the Garmin isn't running either. Those drops in data aren't really drops, that's the pansy taking over the body while the ego refuses to let me slow down. This was not a good run.
But, but, but... you should slow down. Yeah, no sh** Sherlock. I though of that. Here's a more recent 4 mile run for your viewing displeasure.
This run was also just over 4 miles. It took 36.5 minutes. It was also stupidly flat. It featured less incidents of pansy, only 4 of them this time. The average pace for this run was 8:53. I suppose that's a running step in the right direction but the notes on the run said that it felt like I was running directly into a heart attack, if the heart attack was announced with an asthma induced hyperventilation. It was not a good run under an aspect other than it was better than not running. This has been the norm of pretty much all of my runs for a very long time now.
This up and coming weekend, I have a race. I won't do well at this race, at least not according to my standards. On the digital paper, should you look at the results, you think that things didn't go so badly. That's okay. You and I can have different perspectives as to what is a good race for me. There's not much either of us are going to do to convince each other differently.
Upon conclusion of that race, I will be officially throwing in the towel on the 2019 race season and start my offseason prematurely. A few honored and respected individuals immediately know what this means. Let me expand for the rest of you: I have another race in a couple of weeks at the 70.3 distance. I will not be doing this race. I have no desire to die a slow death. This was not an easy decision. In fact, it was one of the hardest decisions I've made in my triathlon career. I don't think I can handle yet another hard fought, painful race to be met with disappointing results. My psyche would rather recoup the losses than experience the what-ifs.
I plan on taking the time off. Regather my energies. Spending time with the Wife and the doggies. And coming back ready to rock to triathlon world with some performances that will make even the Banter proud. 2020 is the Ivan Drago rematch. I must break you.
