Last week I wrote about race week, and this week I thought it was just as, if not more important, to talk about the post race week.
I wrote a post last year, when I thought I could be working my last flight for a while, about mission completion. How there is an emptiness left in the wake of something that you have dedicated yourself too that has reached it’s natural conclusion.
This emotional empty space is further exacerbated by the recovery process. Not only am I no longer activily pursuing a goal, but I’m actively refraining from, and trying to minimize my otherwise high octane training.
I know that my body needs rest, and that recovery is critical. My brain, and my hormonal reward circuits are not on the same page.
Finishing my first longer course triathlon since having kids four years ago has left a similar, albeit slightly smaller wake. The hours spent sweating over a bike trainer, the lonesome hotel treadmills, the opportunities that were sacrificed in the name of a training plan, all come to be familiar friends.
It is easy to feel a sense of Stockholm syndrome, you become sympathetic to the captor of your time and energy, and soon come to depend on it, not just for your physical well-being, but also your emotional happiness and mental stability.
SerenityThroughSweat as you might have gleaned, is a journey through my many endeavors from fitness to fatherhood, but it is also my trial by combat against anxiety and depression.
Without the sweat, I predictably find myself lacking in serenity. As my wife is very ready to remind me, “your not nearly as nice of a person when you haven’t worked out for two or three days”
I’m not sure what the answer is, maybe I’m restless (more than maybe). Maybe my ambition gets the better of my appreciation. Maybe I have been at endurance sport and competition in general long enough that my dopamine reward pathway is off kilter.
Sure I was happy to finish. Sure I enjoyed splashing with my boys in the pool and sliding down the water slide with them. Cracking beers while catching up with an old friend and my wife was a great post race celebration. But the satisfying sense of accomplishment that can carry over through the post race recovery period was conspicuously absent. There was no afterglow.
Before I started writing I was trying to think about what it was that I was actually feeling and this everclear song popped into my head. Ironically, this song would come up on one of my Pandora stations that I use frequently during training.
“we never ask ourselves the questions to the answers that nobody even wants to know I guess the honeymoon is over so much for the afterglow. (So much for the afterglow, Everclear)
There are clearly answers here that demand some tough questions. Fortunately I do some of my best thinking while putting in miles and sweating.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.