Tonight was a roller coaster. Not one of those blow your doors off rides like the Top Thrill Dragster, but rather one of those rusty rails you put the kids on in the back yard.
I nestled in for Game 7 between the Giants and the Cardinals and it was basically over by the time I got four slices into my Pizzereal.* And yes, I’m still eating pizza and drinking beer and nibbling on donuts at work, but I think what you came for, is to hear how a seemingly innocent night transformed my Ironman training strategy.
My initial blog post was meant to zero-in on the parallels between baseball and triathlons, but I kinda felt like ass earlier and didn’t write. Then I drank a bunch of water, mixed some OJ with seltzer, and pounded one Advil before kicking back to read “You Are An Ironman” –which only made me want to do something else.
I threw the book back into its idle pile and went to the basement for pushups, curls, and core work. About 15 minutes in, I started feeling great and craved a run. But, as we know, my knee has been killing me, so I decided to try some light running in place and DAMN, I think I’m onto something.
I flashed back to my Pop Warner football days when we ran in place while coach Farr slapped us upside the head and yelled “Hit the deck!” for push-ups. I played in the lightweight division but was the biggest kid on the team, so naturally they put me on the offensive line to wreak havoc with my 94 pound frame.
I wanted to be a receiver, but whenever I complained, coach would scream, “We need you on that line, Tarrolly!” Fuck me. Okay.
Our team was called the Rams and coaches handed out little ram helmet stickers for good plays, but lineman swag was limited. I had 3 lonely rams and our star receiver’s helmet looked like a damn homecoming float.
Anyway, I’m running in place tonight (suppressing bad memories of my lineman days) and feeling like this new discovery could be a huge key in my training plan. I turned at just the right angle so the lamp cast a huge shadow of my post-modern 94-pound-frame and took short quick Jack Lalanne steps which transported me to training ecstacy.
And now, because I am a serial mind changer, I am seriously thinking about going old-school Ironman training. Push ups, sit ups, running in place, tree climbing, and hay bale dead lifts. So if you see me army crawling in Shelby Park just wave and plan on meeting me later for Ovaltine.
* This is the first time I noticed it was actually Pizzereal with an “e” instead of Pizzareal with an ”a” so I apologize for previous misleading posts.