The Drop

By 4.15 Skrillex is raging throughout my secluded home in Pittsfield, VT.

The juxtaposition of pastoral landscapes cast in mountains against  the dubstep heavy thumpings from a cabin is never lost on me but I find it rather uninteresting.  (I think that's why I fail to blog much.) 

I bought www.confusedhipster.com.  I think it might describe this post emo-boy musician syndrome of being an urban dropout.  I never managed well as a cool kid.

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I'm shy and passive.  Confrontation with people scares the crap out of me.  No man, I'm not going to 'throw down' with you. 

But a mountain?  An event designed to break me?  I've been throwing myself into brutality week in and week out for 6 years now.  I'm confrontational every fucking day - it's just on my own time where I can't bother anyone else.

And every time I say, "Damn, I must look fucking insane to the world" I think instead:  "I have arrived.  This is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing at exactly this time."

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I don't know why the hell you are reading this.  In the back of my mind I write assuming that obligatory readings are probably the norm so I want to make the experience as painless as possible, and therefore brief.

There is a story I think I've felt that I've needed to be telling and have, just not been ready. Start exhaling.  I think my training really suffered because of this reality. What is training but an expression of our internal honesty?

I don't know what that narrative is but I'm grateful I realize it doesn't have to fit neatly into a category or pre-fab module.  Thank you for having it unfold by reading my posts.  Please share them if you'd like.  I'd like that.

And somehow we all will get from introverted musician to alter ego rock n'roll singer to Barn Beast of Vermont to a man just laughing at it all and hoping for a modicum of wisdom.

EpicMan to Benefit Pittsfield, VT (Spartan HQ)

I am wrapping up my season, and 2011 too, for that matter, with what might be the greatest Triathlon spectacle I've heard of since I was first captivated by the Ironman World Championships at the fable location simply termed "Kona".  The privilege of participating in EpicMan on December 29^th, still keeps me up at night in anticipation.  

7.2 mile swim, 336 mile bike, and a 78.6 mile run.  Non Stop.  On the island of Oahu.  The cut off time…New Years - 60 hours after the start.  24 competitors to throw down and see who can get it done first.

Getting to the starting line of this event will be in no small part owed to the town of Pittsfield, Vermont where I have lived and trained all of this 2011 season.  And as I exit 2011 and head to 2012, I want to give something back to the town that stood vigil over my runs through the mountains.  The community here is something deeper than I've known elsewhere.  And this showed most prominently when Pittsfield was recently struck by Hurricane Irene.

I still pass the collapsed houses and properties on my rides and runs.  I still can’t ride without considerable detours and construction plaguing the trip.  I’ve seen resolve and strength in the people of Vermont that far outshines anything that I've encountered.  I am in admiration.

This is why I will be competing in EpicMan to raise money for The Pittsfield Hurricane Relief Fund, www.pittsfieldhurricanerelief.org, in an effort to help this town to which I owe so much.

So as I head into the Double Ironman this weekend in VA and as I ready for Epicman in December I am going to continue to point everyone to:  www.pittsfieldhurricanerelief.org.  There was an outpouring of support immediately after the hurricane, but this needs to continue.  Just like an extreme endurance event, focus and persistence are required.  We still have a long way to go to get back to where we were.

This is why I'm dedicating my racing of Epicman to raising money for www.pittsfieldhurricanerelief.org. Please contribute directly on that site or contact me as JasonJ@SpartanRace.com if you can help in any other way.

A Bit Charred, But the Burnout is Momentarily Behind.

“And you can’t break through with the one that you want.”

Maritime ~ Parade of the Punk Rock T-Shirts

Wading onto the shores of the over-trained is common enough as to evoke no screams from the lifeguards.  And we’ll all, at some point in time, wash up unconscious and shaking on the rocks.

How many times can you go to the well?  When does evoked distress usurp your body’s ability to battle back?  When is bruised battered?  When is battered broken? 

It’s different for everyone.  And I can’t even begin to figure it out for myself.  As much time as I spend with my own body the more of a strange guest I appear when I try and speak open and intimately.

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If burnout were purely a physical phenomenon, a concoction of muscles and tendons refusing to respond, a platter of strains and limbs polluted with lactic, then we could at least chart the problem with medical journal explicitness.

Personally, I’ve found, burnout takes on a more manipulative role as it firmly embeds itself into my  psychic regions and encamps before unfurling itself outward, systematically shutting down one system after another. 

Parasitic.

Burnout germinates as a repetitive Fuck My Life that accompanies all usual activities.  Some invisible element materializes from the atmosphere and settles upon every object - a patina of misery you can’t brush away. 

Burnout affixes itself within the deployment of hormones and serotonin, making sure it disrupts any standard operating procedure with outbursts and emotional conflagrations.

Burnout disembowels your favorite songs.  It weakens the syntax of language.  Burnout doesn’t wash off no matter how long you stand in the shower.

Burnout injects those established race goals with doubt and gags and binds all core beliefs regarding the timeless question:  Why should I wake up today? 

Burnout then complicates recovery on a cellular level.  You’ve been stripped of any motivation to workout first, and then your immune system starts operating like a that frenetic vacuum cleaner in your basement closet you refuse to throw out. 

I’ve been known to fall over rather embarrassingly, the composition resulting from my balance and leg musculature a knocked over Scrabble Board of confusion. 

But this is not the trying part.  Crying on the ground inexplicably trumps all in terms of embarrassment. 

Burnout sutures shut within you an amnesia of all your accomplishments to date along with a conviction that all is lost if you don’t get right back on the fucking track.

And then you do.  And prolong the misery.

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In readying for Kona in 2006,  I didn’t trust the fitness that got me there.  I went skeletal and near anemic.  I remember crawling from my bed to the kitchen, propping myself against the cabinets trying to climb up to the Keurig. 

Battered into broken. 

It took me two years to battle back.

I did in 2010  when I broke my hip while overtraining.  Broken into shattered.

This time I ran away to a Swaziland hut for 5 weeks…before absconding to Vermont after finding Joe Desena’s passport on my return trip.

And now, during the last three days I’ve imbibed the compounded misery of those previous episodes before I finally recognized what was going on.  Again.

Has anyone ever learned his or her lesson the first time?  Can I have your autograph?  Saint.  Bodhisattva.

*

I hadn’t worked out in three days and the guilt was coiling like a stiff mattress spring. 

Internal pressure has internal cause.  “Remember that”, I kept reminding myself as I lambasted myself with accusations of dogging it.

But finally I stood firm and refused to elevate the damage and prolong the illness.  I went so far as accompanying my workout partner to the lake…

…and watched her swim while I was sprawled along the shoreline, too tired to stand.

And finally, as strangely as the untimely cold front blew in, it started to dissipate.  The fatigue dusting every action was beginning to catch in the wind.

This morning I woke up to a whole new Vermont.  Clean and crisp lines of thought caught at the fog covering the valley. 

I could taste my coffee.  Music took on its original tonality.  Words fell into place, syntax restored and semantics returned to boot.

Fuck My Life translated into Hello My Life (Damned As You May Be).

At least you’re interesting.  At least there are explosions in the distance to investigate. 

Once I’m strong enough to get there.

And then you go to your one shot to where you are.

Rouge Wave ~ Love’s Lost Guarantee

30 hours a week...

That is the magic number.

I've done this before and I'm going to do it again.  But this time with more discipline, rigor, and overall dispassionate intelligence.

To race a Ironman fast I was doing 20-30 hours of training a week.  That is NOT including time getting your gear together or breaking it down. It doesn't include stretching or showering.  It does not include eating.

That's 20-30 hours of straight aerobic and anaerobic conditioning on the clock.

Mileage is something most athletes dispense in an effort sound impressive.  But where are you doing your mileage?  Florida athletes can't talk to Vermont athletes about mileage.

Two different languages there.

But we all can comprehend 25 hours of quality lactic threshold enhancing swimming, biking, and running.

5 hours a day - 6 days a week.  30 hours blocked off on my calendar.

Inviolate times.  Sacred intervals sequestered from the day's stuff.

This does not mean that I will train 30 hours a week every week.  It means I can.  And it's on me to follow through.  No excuses but personal irresoluteness.

I made it available to myself:  my goal.

I can choose to sleep in or eat donuts during said 30 hours.

But that's my failure and my life to live.

I'm taking ownership.