Cobwebs

I'm nearly two weeks into my training, under the guidance of Cadence coach Brian Walton, and it's immensely gratifying to feel the stiffness, in my lower back and knees, melting away. The workouts have been basics: a mix of 45-minute base runs, two-hour bike rides (once per week) and masters swim workouts. I'm sure a physiologist could explain it to me, but I find it compelling how I had assumed all the stiffness I was feeling, not to mention having thrown my back out a three times in three months, was simply a matter of being older. At this point, my diet hasn't been anything to brag about: it's been scattershot, doing well half the time, and the other half the time missing lunch quite often and drinking an extra cup of coffee to fill the void (a fiction, of course). Regardless, the consistent mix of training, with an occasional off-day, seemingly has swept out the stiffness.

Brian has asked me to look for an Olympic-distance race scheduled around the end of February. I said sure thing, and felt the instant zap of adrenalin when you sense a race on the horizon. I said, "That's not too far away," to which Brian responded (we were talking on the phone, but I could see the guy smiling as he said this), "No, it isn't." The subtext of which was immediately clear to me--the prospect of a race commitment puts the workout of today into greater focus. Of course, it also makes it fun. "That's the magic of it," I replied. Indeed, you can always count on the omnipotent motivational power of flicking a stamped envelope containing a race entry into the mailbox.