Breakdowns and Breakthroughs

This past weekend, I attended the first 2013 team race of my triathlon team - Bike Authority Fleet Feet (BAFF) Multisport. I was unable to compete because of my tibia stress fracture, but I took it upon myself to act as team photographer.

I used to think it would be next-to-impossible watch others compete when I cannot, but I learned long ago that volunteering and cheering at races came with its own set of rewards. This year, I've learned something else. Not only can I watch and have fun with my teammates - as well as rekindling my love affair with my Canon 7D - but I can also live vicariously through my teammates.

I know this because I also act as the webmaster for my team's website and I've been badgering them to write race reports for two years now. Finally, several of them have stepped up to the challenge -- although it did help a tiny bit to mandate a short race report for the site as one of the team requirements.

In the past few weeks, I have found that my teammates have not only stepped up to the challenge of writing, several of them captured great emotions in their words. One of these race reports even gave me chills. I'm so proud of my teammates for helping me tell our stories - even if it's just for us, it's good for the next generation of triathletes (face it, I'm one of the elder-statemen on the team) to read that hard work pays off and what a thrill it is to execute a good race. It also helps to read about breakdowns when things don't go right and that we all struggle at times.

Reading about other's races is making me a better teammate because I get to help tell their stories. It gives me a reason not to breakdown in tears every time I have to DNS this year because of injury.

The rest of the story is that even though my leg is taking way more time to heal than expected, I'm seeing a bit of light that I never thought I'd see at my age. I'd given up years ago at getting much faster as I rapidly approach the age of 50. I can train smarter. I can race smarter. But face it, it's a losing battle with muscle development, and age-group performances are now the thing that matters more than overall performances. But in the discipline of swimming, I've always believed I can go faster. I rarely try to do much with swimming because I'm happy to be naturally competent and competitive and therefore able to keep the status quo in swimming while focusing more attention on biking and running.

But it always, just a little bit, bothers me that no matter how hard I train, I can't really swim anything close to the times of my youth. Yes, it's because I don't train as much. But even when I do get to the pool three or four times a week, I go nowhere. My race times, however fast, never change. My training interval times also never change. It was like a plateau that seemed impossible to overcome without a huge time commitment.

That all changed yesterday.

After a grueling 1.5-hour session on a device created by the devil himself - the elliptical trainer (did I tell you I can't run?) - I got in the pool. I didn't expect much. I was no longer planning a hard workout. And when I'm feeling like that, I always turn to my most dreaded workout: 5-10 intervals of 200 yd. I like to suffer through 200s because they're not sprints and they're not really distance events. They're evil and they build character. Like my old bugaboo, the 400 m in track, they're a race or workout distance I love to hate. But I can certainly suffer through them - whether I'm swimming fast or not.

Yesterday I expected my usual set of 5 x 200 yd, each one somewhere between 2:32 and 2:40 (more like 2:40), and being frustrated that I can go all out and never break 2:30. For years this was best I could do. By the end of the season, I was still doing 200s at 2:31. In fact, I would be ecstatic if I could do a set and keep them all under 2:35.

I did a warmup, then a quick 200 kick, very little rest and started my first 200. My stroke felt better than usual, but by the end of the first 100, I felt the fatigue kick in and thought "oh well, just get through it." I finished the 200 and looked up at the clock. What the? it said 2:25. I did a double take. I actually got confused because I had never seen the second hand on that side of the half-minute after a 200. I almost forgot I was in the middle of a set. I did an immediate adjustment of my interval repeat to 2:45, and took off on my second one. Next one.. 2:27. What was happening?

What happened, I determined, was that I just broke through a major plateau. And like when I swam in high school, breaking through plateaus never happened gradually. I recalled the first time I broke 1:15 in the 100 yd breaststroke. No 1:14 or 1:13 for me.. I went straight to 1:12. Almost overnight.

When things like this happen, I can regain my attitude of "never give up the ship." It's been a long hard voyage for about a year and a half, but maybe my physical therapist is right. Maybe there is still a comeback left in this old body.