The Last Week

This is the last week of school! The most stressful, nerve-wracking, heart-breaking week in all of school. Well, for most people. I, on the other hand, have been handing in final papers and projects over the past few weeks, leaving me with only two finals. Not a bad week at all, actually. My biggest enemy will be boredom, methinks.
I got the results from my blood work back last Thursday. I am anemic, which really does explain a lot, but it also makes me think as to how long this has been going on- I've had these symptoms for almost a year now, so does that mean I have wasted a year of what could have been good training? Either way, I'm glad this got figured out before summer. My B12 and D levels were below what is considered "normal," so they were much too low for an athlete. My iron level was in the low end of "normal," which means that it was too low for an athlete. What do I do now? THe doctor told me to take 1000 IU of D and 1000 micrograms of B12 eery day; until I get the vitamins, I will be upping my consumption of all meat and (lactose-free) dairy, because those are the only natural sources of B12. I'm trying to get back on track with my training, with more of an emphasis on running to get ready from Cross Country in the fall. It's gonna be a good summer of training.
On a totally unrelated note, my roommate got engaged this weekend. He had told me last week that he was going to propose, but no one else expected him to do it until after the summer, which made the surprise that much sweeter. They really are the perfect couple, complementing (and complimenting) each other in many ways. No date for the wedding yet, but I know that he'll make sure all they guys on our team are able to make it.

End of the Season Blues

My track season ended abruptly, curtailed by various injuries and mysterious symptoms. Brief history: burn out at end of last cross-country, built a road bike and began cycling, spent the winter biking/running roughly 10 hours a week, sat out of indoor track season, came into outdoor season less prepared than I had anticipated, raced at a mediocre level, and finished. I don't know what the problem was; I just couldn't get myself going at the intensity needed. My parents believe that I've lost too much weight and am suffering the consequences of that; my coaches think it might be anemia, iron deficiency, and so I had blood taken the other day for testing. I won't get the results until the end of this week. And finally, I've had nagging injuries. Several weeks ago I bought a new saddle for my bike, but my body did not take to it and I developed piriformis problems in my left hip. After a few weeks I switched my saddles, but now I'm having problems behind my right knee, which I think is a compensation injury. I did some research, and more than anything it seems to be a meniscus tear; all the symptoms line up, but I don't know how I could have done it. So, as it stands, I've spend the last week, and probably this week too, not doing much training other than weightlifting an core. This is good, though, because it gives me plenty of time to focus on finals. I just hope all of this will be cleared up before the summer so I can begin training again, racing some tri's as well as looking forward to XC 2012!

The week that was

The period of 7 days known as a week simply does not make much sense to me. At the beginning of a week, 7 days feels like an eternity and the week goes slowly; the middle of the week still feels slow, but you can see both the beginning and the end; by the end of the week, though, you're left wondering what just happened and where did all my time go. So much can happen in a week, too. Two Sundays ago, Palm Sunday, the pastor at Grace Baptist gave a short summary of Jesus' entire ministry. What struck me the most was that Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what we know as Palm Sunday was less than a week before he was crucified. He came into Jerusalem heralded as the conquering king who would rescue the Jews from Roman rule, but only five days later he as condemned to be crucified by the same people. I never really though about how short of a time period that really was.

The same thing goes for a normal week too. I can start a week thinking one thing, but by the end of the week I probably will have changed my views, because a week ago seems to have been so long ago. Injuries, bad workouts, conversations, classes, books, videos, they all serve to shape what I think, and when I look back over the course of several weeks, months, not to mention years, I am amazed by how much my view of the world has changed as a result of my experiences.

Wait, what?

I am not really good at this. The best laid plans of mice and men... So much has changed since last time. My XC season ended in a spectacular blowup-burnout: I was 5th man after the first race but by the time conference rolled around I only beat one other guy the team, who just happened to be my younger brother, putting me around 20th guy. Feef. What happened? I think it was a variety of things, the main thing being that I burned the candle at both ends. I was training too hard and trying to lose weight at the same time; I don't think I took a day off all season, becoming unreasonably anal about mileage. I ended the season early, taking time to get fat and lift weights and generally relax; throughout the semester I had been buying parts to build a bike, and over Thanksgiving I finally put it all together. It is a thing of beauty: a simple road bike with classic geometry, something that I can knock around on. Since then, I haven't really stopped biking, doing my best to mix it up with running and rowing. I took the indoor track season off, instead just building a base and focusing on school. I'm doing outdoor track now, but I'm still not in the shape I would like to be so this season will just be another training period for triathlon this summer and ultimately XC in the fall. I keep saying this, but I'm going to do my best to keep up with this, if only just as a place for me to think out loud and work things out.

Quick Thoughts on this Summer

Hmmm... it’s been a long while. I didn’t meet my goal of averaging a book a week for the summer, but it was a pretty good total: Catch 22, Closing Time, Steppenwolfe, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Metamorphosis, Running With the Buffaloes, Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes, Slaughterhouse 5, and Flowers for Algernon; nine actual books. nine out of... 14 weeks. Okay, I only partway met my goal. But I learned several things through trying this: 1) If you don’t set out to do anything, you won’t accomplish anything. Or, it’s better to have tried and failed rather than to have never tried at all. 2) If and when you do set out to do something, it is probably a good idea to pace yourself and ease into it rather than diving headfirst. This way, you are less likely to burn out and more likely to stay consistent. 3) You need to set aside time to do what you want/need to do. If you just go through the day without a specific plan of when or where you are going to do something, it won’t get done. Time will slip away and you will never get that time back.

That last realization was perhaps the most poignant towards the end of this summer. I finished my first year of college in the beginning of May- I had May, June, July, and half of August before I had to go back for XC camp week. 14 weeks. An eternity. Yet, it flew by faster than I could have ever imagined. Einstein’s theory of relativity states that the faster you go, the slower time goes. Right? I actually don’t know, but this summer I was moving pretty quickly the whole time, and time went by faster than I could have ever imagined. I’m writing this at the beginning of my third week of classes for fall semester, and I feel like my summer was the blink of an eye. And really, it was. Between working construction full-time, training for triathlon/cross-country, and my ambitious book reading project, there was not much room for summer to exist. 

And this leads me to part three: What is the point of all this? What was I trying to accomplish this summer? When I ask myself what my purpose was this summer, I come up empty-handed and speechless. I cannot really think of this summer as anything other than an extended, wasted waiting period. All I was doing was passing time from spring to fall; I looked and grasped for a higher purpose, such as my reading project or working or training; each of these things provided a temporary purpose, but none of them really satisfied me. I kept filling up on these and coming away emptier than I was before. Looking back, I see the summer as the Lost Possibility. I could have done so much, but instead I just tried to get through as fast as I possibly could. I don’t want to live that way. I want to embrace every moment of my life as the precious gift that it is. 

I Tri

Okay, I have been reading, and I do have some books to talk about, Slaughterhouse 5 and Flowers for Algernon, but there are other things I would rather talk about. Such as the triathlon I did today. I would like to think of myself as an endurance athlete, having run for almost five years at this point I am currently on a college cross-country and track team. But in my spare time I like to tri. I'm not really that good, but it it something I really enjoy and lets me unwind from the rigors of normal life and athletics. It was sprint triathlon, with a half-mile swim, 18 mile bike, and a 5k run. The word sprint is an accurate depiction of the action up in the front of the pack. I lost the leaders in the swim, but I feel that I passed more people on the bike than passed me, and no one passed me on the run while I gained 7 or 8 spots. Ultimately I placed 16th overall, the youngest by ten years in that range. I also won my age group. So I guess I can feel good about that. My total time was 1:33:52, but I don't know my individual splits yet. But, more importantly, I learned something today. I learned that I love nothing more than putting my body through the crucible of racing as hard as I can. I can honestly say that I gave close to if not 100% in this race. Coming out of the swim I could not feel my shoulders from swimming harder than I ever had before, during the bike portion I was attacking the uphills so hard that I was sobbing on the downhill portions, and during the run I was just holding on for dear life, pushing to the last. And I loved every gloriously painful moment of it.

"Closing Time"

So I finished the sequel to Catch-22, Closing Time, and I must say it was something of a disappointment. Set about 50 years after the first book, Closing Time follows a much older Yossarian and his adventures in modern society. The story line was convoluted and confusing at times, much like Catch-22, but many times, especially towards the end, it did not make much sense. Catch-22 was at least probable, but Closing Time was very contrived and a little forced; the story didn’t move on its own like Catch-22. And there was too much sex. Much, much too much. I’d like to think that I’m not a prude, but it was just too much. If you are looking for a nihilistic satire of modern society, this is your book, unless you want something easy to read. Then it isn’t.