Somebody's Hero

Every once in a while I wonder what motivators could possibly have driven me to, what most others consider, the extremes I've adopted as my new lifestyle.

NE Season Opener - Finish Line

One thing I'm very clear about is that I would never, ever, have undertaken this kind of training regimen without some very strong "pull" motivators. There are both push (stick) and pull (carrot) motivators in the mix, but for me, the ones that pull are stronger.

The push motivators are obvious: "gee I'd like to lose some weight" or "I really should get to the gym and get in better shape". You sense right away how little emotional energy those generate, and how non-specific they are. I've had these for years. They are the lazy fat slobs of the world of motivators. They opine. They gesticulate. They may even whine. But they don't kick ass.

They become a box you need to check - a nag. You usually don't put any specific goals around them,
because if you did, you'd have to commit to something. It's more convenient to leave it vague. And guaranteed, when you get into them gym, your workout may fall short of achieving the pain of commitment. I refer to my experience of my own mindset, and my own mode of working out, the way I used to. Your mileage may vary - but I doubt it.

A different order of push is the "getting the crap scared out of you", near-death experience. In the last few years I watched as my father declined physically, to a point where he was no longer able to get into the gym. A few months ago he passed away. The connection between the two was not lost on me. I think you could call that a near-death experience.

On the other hand, the pull motivator is a promise, some kind of fervent hope for tomorrow, a bright sunrise, a flooding happiness.

I'll admit that one of mine was, "Gee, if I trained seriously, maybe I could kick Matt's ass in next years Triathlon season". That was a happy thought - the picture of Matt crossing the finish line and seeing me standing there cheering him on, having finished before him. 

That competitive motivator gets generalized to everyone you're racing with. The whole age-group thing is great for that. I don't stand a chance of beating most well-trained 30 year-olds, but if I can podium in my age-group, that's worth something. These guys train, they are are fast, and competitive.

I don't know if that's the primary thing, but it's right up there. Big fun - big pull.

The other aspect of competition is how you compete with yourself. For a techie geek like myself, your body in training is a vast science laboratory in action. All the data that comes out of the workouts begs for performance analysis and improvement. Every workout gets logged. I measure the results of sprint intervals in the pool with those I did three months ago. The time trials I do every few months allow me to see exactly what kind of performance improvements I've made. These are results concrete and demonstrable in a way few other things are in life. Very satisfying - big pull.

The events are a lot of fun in and of themselves too. They're tremendously exciting to be a competitor in. You feel like a champion just being in the event. That's a big pull for me too. Ultimately, the events, as brief as they are, lasting an hour or three, are a culmination of months and maybe years of training. So the intensity of focus during the events is an exhilarating high. An heroic high.

In the words of Evan Fisher, my film school buddy, "everyone needs to be somebody's hero", and in these events, you feel like a hero just crossing the finish line.