The Unholy Trinity of Training

I've decided there's an unholy trinity of training, a three-spoked wheel consisting of guilt, routine, and "the plan."   I stumble along in the right direction, and this trinity gets me there. Allow me to explain in my totally rambling fashion.

I'm like the rest of America, I enjoy eating healthy foods like donuts,  keeping my mind sharp with reality and primetime television, and staying hydrated through inordinate amounts coffee and sugar water. Moving towards a state of comfort is a central theme in my life.    I draw the line at the snuggie -- I've manage to make it this long without the need for stapling armholes into a third-rate motel blanket. Coffee-addled as I might be, to overcome the blissful comfort of the couch, I have to reach an escape velocity like some sort of NASA launch.  It takes the same forethought and manpower to get me moving as it does to launch a small communications satellite. One fuel for this escape is guilt. What Holy Trinity wouldn't be complete without a little guilt?   Guilt has many faces, some are genetic, like a parent or grandparent that worked literally to death; some are masks we put on ourselves, like living up to the statement, "I'll ride when I'm done with this sticky bun and my third cup of cake-in-a-cup coffee."  Guilt doesn't make most fitness training books as a motivator but every person I know, elite athlete or beginner, employs it on occasion to keep things moving along -- it's like the Mussolini of training, evil or useless except for keeping the trains running on time.  And for what it's worth, guilt has taken me through a few tough rides that felt like a failed campaign across North Africa.

Outside of guilt-fueled propulsion, routine compels me to complete a variety of tasks, on and off the bike. Routine is powerful.   If I did it yesterday, chances are, I'll try to do it today, like visiting the vending machine to ask the question, "What does nougat and chocolate have to do with a 19th century French novel?  I better investigate."   Routine dresses me funny in the morning, drives me to work through a fog of sleepiness, and has me throwing my leg over a bike, even if I could list a thousand reasons for not doing so.  Routine is the gray, low-protein gruel that I'd eat unless someone forces me to eat a salad.  I am theoretically nearing the halfway point of my longitudinal study of one, but the results are there:  I have remained close in form and function to my 18 year old self.  In many ways, I might have improved (you know, beyond the obvious points of having an income and scoring a wife out of my league or species).  I'd like to say it was something else, something profound or poetic, that drove me to this point. It wasn't.  It was routine. The lie we tell ourselves is that we are the world's best improv actor, always changing and adapting, making our own destiny with what we say and do from moment to moment. The sad truth:  we get up, we go to work, we eat, and even exercise within the bounds of a distribution called routine. You pick one and you get something in return, whether you like it or not.  Over Thanksgiving, I even had an argument with a family member about routine dictating body composition. I don't want to name names, but this person complained of her weight and said, "Obesity runs in my family though."  Ok, it was my Mom.  I checked the paperwork for the third time since Thanksgiving and I am still not adopted.

Routine is what I do every day, but '"the plan" is what I want to get done.  It's the Holy Spirit of this trinity, and I don't just mean inexplicable to anyone but the devout.  Underneath the work, the sweat, the broken bones, and the shameless avoiding of work is "the plan."  In my case, it comes to me in little pieces, tiny metaphorical messages in airline liquor-sized bottles left in my bath tub.  I will improve my power at threshold.  I will ride to work three times a week.  I will avoid Athos, Porthos, and Aramis no matter what they call to me at the vending machine.   These are plans, in much the same way a diet for a morbidly obese person is "to eat less crap."  They do change things, and are directionally correct.  Plans are not goals.  Let's not get crazy.  I might have to reach a goal.  Plans are more like traffic laws in Rome, beautiful suggestions of what I might do.

In the end, this power of this dysfunctional trinity comes from the sum being greater than its parts.   I make a plan, and it's like I'm deciding to see a movie when I see its preview.  Seems like a good idea, really interested in doing it at that moment, but it might not ever happen.  If I say it out loud, however, well, my guilt fires up, and I start to give it a legitimate try. Once I stick to it for a little bit -- you guessed it --  it becomes routine.   Sometimes damaged or unproductive thinking that might turn into a rut or worse comes together to produce results.   I am sure I am not the only follower of this unholy arrangement.  The unspoken church is strong among our numbers.   And for this trinity, our sign of the cross is turning the pedals over, for no good reason other than we just need an excuse to hang out with the rest of the flock, and beat them up the next hill.

--Joe Laltrello