Struggle

As a vegan athlete; a self referential term I’m warming up to, I follow a good number of – you guessed it – vegan athletes’ social media accounts, and although the vegan community *can* be a community of socially conscious, inspiring people – the athletic community can be decidedly different than that.

I won’t paint any group of people with a wide brush – to do so would be divisive and certainly not helpful, but there’s a lot of ‘tough as nails’ talk from a lot of athletes that focus so much on being ‘hardcore’ and using colorful language reminiscent of being in a boxing ring with a heavyweight champion, and as much as the message being transmitted is unequivocally true (and it does speak to me at times), I just can’t personally be brought to use language like that in this stage of my life – there are a few reasons why. Here’s one:

I spent a lot of my life carrying a ‘tough as nails’ demeanor as a way of letting people know that I didn’t want to engage. I’m a natural introvert and an artist, and have spent a lot of time being uncomfortable in my own skin and I thought giving off a certain ‘unapproachable‘ vibe would protect me – but it didn’t. What it actually did was make people want to take me down a peg, and it ultimately caused more discomfort and anguish in my life than I probably deserved.

Carrying myself this way did no good for anyone – not for me, and certainly not for anyone I cared about or could have connected with… people who could have enriched my life in unimaginable ways, and I was denying myself the opportunity.

I genuinely want to have a different, more introspective tone and I hope that reaches people. If you’re following along and you’re pushing your personal boundaries, be they physical, social, emotional, psychological, or are working to improve yourself in any way AND you respond more positively to a warm reception than ‘tough’ rhetoric then I am happy to extend that to you, and I applaud you 100%.

Not to discount those ‘tough guy’ athletes in any way – When I’m on the bench trying to squeeze a few more reps out, or I’m a 2kms from home and I know that if I stop & walk, it’ll throw my whole day’s schedule off – I have to conjure up the internal internal fight to get it done, but I’m working to improve more than just my physique through all of this, and I believe you can be physically tough and be warm and inviting at the same time. I don’t often use the word ‘Zen‘ but the image that comes to mind when you hear that word is probably what I’m shooting for.

Speaking of which…

Training update: It’s been a good week.

I swam Tuesday & Friday… Tuesday was both tough and educational. I’m still a bit frantic in the water – my panic button seems to have a bit of a hair-trigger, and once I finished my 500m, I elected to do an extra couple laps – since the pressure was off, they were my most smooth & successful. My education was in realizing (again) that: I am the pressure. I need to calm down.

Our first BRick (bike/run) workout was Monday, 60 minutes on the bike and 15 minutes on the treadmill, which was the longest session I’ve had and one of the longest of the entire program, time-wise. The sense of accomplishment of completing it was immense! It made Saturday’s 45 minutes on the bike feel like a leisurely ride through the park (not really… did a few high-intensity intervals because I was pushing for maximum sweat – but it went by quicker!).

I got into the weight room, as well this week. All in all this week was pretty intense in retrospect and I feel great about rounding the week out the way I did. I got in an extra ‘HIIT’ session on the treadmill which slayed me.

Today’s bike session will be a blast. Might tack a quick run on the end of that gym visit for a little bonus effort.

Next Week: Super Sprint… not sure which day, but it’s happening, in amongst the other punishing workouts.