Swimming, and another Rant

I just got home from swimming up at the lake and it was a great, great swim! It's been soooooo hot here in the city that it was just a blessing to be so cool in the water. That said, the lake was pretty warm (we were actually revelling in the cool spots), especially since I was wearing a wetsuit. I hardly needed the wetsuit for warmth, but since I'll be racing in one, it's good to get the practice in. Plus, it gives added buoyancy, so you don't have to work as hard to stay afloat (not that that's hard for me with all my natural buoyancy). Last week, I swam three laps of the lake (1200m). This week I swam 5 laps (2000m) in just over 40 minutes, which is exactly where I want to be. If I can come out of the water in my two big races this year in under 45 minutes I will be very happy.

I didn't go to the gym as planned this morning. I was too exausted from my weekend of working out in the sun, so I stayed in bed an extra hour (even though I went to bed at 9:15). I also have this heat rash in a rather embarassing place, so I didn't really feel like working out. I've got some Lanacane, so that is helping a bit. I'm going to ride into the gym tomorrow morning and do a Gravity class before work. I won't be able to do my Tuesday Evening Bike Ride because I'm going to see a performance of The Taming of the Shrew in the park tomorrow night. Culture wins over exercise (this time, at least). Maybe I can do an extra long ride home to compensate a bit. That will all depend on the temperature, I think (smog alert again for tomorrow).

OK, so here comes the rant (which is as much stream of consciousness as anything else, so excuse the rambling):

I really hate it when people complain ad nauseum about things that are: a) of their own doing; and/or b) not within their control. I mean, what good does it do to whine about something that is a done deal? Just deal with it, adapt and move on! Ugh, people who blame others for their situation really piss me off, too!

So, here’s my rant (and there are many levels as to why I am ranting about this, not just the superficial ones): Back in May, I decided on which races I was going to do this summer. It cost me a bloody fortune to register for all of them, but I just went on-line, put in my credit card number and was done with it. I am all for togetherness and planning to do events together and such, but when it comes right down to it, we are each responsible for deciding on which races to do, getting in our registrations and planning out our training accordingly. There is at least one race every weekend between June and Labour Day. I made my decision in May which of those races I was going to do and let my friends/training partners know so that they could decide what they wanted to do (i.e., do the same race or some other race – their choice). Also, some races are more difficult to get into because they are very popular and have limited spots.

Anyway, a bunch of us decided that we wanted to do a particular race in Kingston because it’s a great event, KH is from Kingston and it will be CL’s 30th birthday on race day. Cool! That will be a great weekend. Well, as time went by, CL started to waver on whether she would be ready to do this race. Clearly, her heart wasn’t in it because she hadn’t done nearly enough training to be prepared for that event, even though she stated that it was her goal race (she blew off key workouts the last couple of months to do other things). So today she announces that she is going to do the shorter distance race because she’s not ready for the long one. Fair enough. But then I get this distressed e-mail that the short course race is full and she doesn’t know what to do. So I tell her to register for the long course and adjust her expectations considering she hasn’t done enough training. Well then she replies that her husband is all upset because he wanted it to be his first triathlon and he can’t get into the race and so she is all upset, blah, blah, blah… [In fact, I believe that she is the one who is disappointed that he can't do the race; I don't think he really cares.] Lookit, people: if this race was so important for you to do then you would have registered in time. Like they say, he who hesitates is lost! Sheesh!

But like I said, I’m irked about this on many different levels. I take my training very seriously and plan and execute that plan as closely as possible. Unless it’s a really short race (which I don’t do much of these days), I can’t just show up on race day and expect to do well, let alone finish, if I have not done the appropriate amount of training. I have three races planned for this year. The first one is on July 17 and I expect that it will take me about 2 hours to complete (not really long, but not a walk in the park, either). The race at the end of July will take me at least 4.5 hours to complete and the one at the end of the summer will be about 6.5 hours.

And I guess that’s why I’m pissed off at CL: she keeps saying that she wants to do this race but her training has been nowhere near where it should have been to be ready for it (especially since she is still so new to the sport). The other level on which this irks me is the whole “but if my husband can’t do it, then what’s the point.” Actually, it’s more than that: she’s one of those “Husband Cheerleader” types. What I mean by that is that every sentence is “Oh, poor hubby this” or “I’m trying to get hubby to [fill in the blank] because it will be good for him and he’d never take the initiative on his own to do it.” Case in point: she goes out and rents him a wetsuit for this past weekend because SHE wanted him to come swimming and she knew that he would never do it on his own. SHE wants him to do triathlon, so SHE is the one going to all these great lengths to sign him up for races, etc.

All of this comes on the heels of a disastrous training day on Saturday where we all succumbed to the heat quite badly. None of us were in good spirits, so it made for very trying times all around. Again it came down to an issue of people having different training goals, which was fine – I just did my thing and then we met up to do part of it together. But then KL took off ahead since he is a faster rider and didn’t ask where we were turning so I had to ride up ahead to catch him to let him know where we were going. I’m sure that I was a total bitch through the entire ordeal and sometimes I have a hard time containing myself when I’m pissed off, but I also resented the fact that they relied on me to plan the route (again) and when I tried to explain where we were going, nobody seemed to be at all interested in knowing the route and were just happy to follow along. Sure, that’s great until someone gets too far ahead or behind – each person has a responsibility to know where they are going. Period.

So, the bottom line for me now is that I am just going to do my own thing. In fact, I did do that on Sunday morning when I went for my long run alone. After the ordeal on Saturday, I just didn’t want to be responsible for anyone other than myself. I really do struggle with this because when I take on responsibility for other people, I take it on fully. I’m never sure how much they expect me to be responsible for, so I’m sure I end up taking on more than I really should be. I don’t know if they are happy to give up control to me or if they just figure that they don’t have any other choice. I hope it’s the former and not the latter – I wouldn’t want anyone to think that they HAVE to do things my way.

I know that I can be overbearing and that I can be perceived to have a “my way or the highway” attitude. To some extent that’s true: I do believe that there is a “right” way and a “less right” way of doing things and I do have to learn to accept the fact that there are many paths one can take to get to the same point. But I think what is coming across is that the “right” way I have defined for myself is the way that others must also do it, which really isn’t the case. I know what I have to do to get to a certain destination. If others want to come along with me then that’s great, but if they choose my path I expect them to do things my way (or rather, not expect me to do things their way). I keep reminding myself of that question: Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? You can’t have it both ways. But for someone like me who equates being right with being happy, that’s a tough change of position to make.

There are two paths of experience that we can take: the first one is goal- or destination-oriented. This means that the objective is the attainment of the goal, without regard to the path taken to get there (and recognizing that there are many paths to the same goal). Sometimes the goal can be so rewarding that the path chosen is of little consequence. The second approach is to be more process-oriented, where the experience IS the goal, not just some path to get you somewhere. I guess to some extent there is a third approach, which is that the goal and the process have equal value and that if the process is not rewarding that somehow the goal itself is less rewarding, just like if the process is enjoyable but the goal not attained, it loses something. The position I took while training for Ironman was that the process and the goal had to be of equal value. In the end, it’s the months of dedicated training that are far more significant that anything you do on race day. Running across the finish line is a fleeting moment in time; it’s the hours, days, weeks and months leading up to it that have lasting meaning.

I guess this time I have decided to be more goal- than process-oriented. Perhaps this links back to the fact that I don’t believe that the process my friends are following will be sufficient to reach the goal (for me, at least). And maybe their goals are different than mine. Perhaps process is their goal this time around. And that’s fine for them, but it also means that perhaps I need to train on my own given the difference in our goals.

The other thing that is still niggling at me is the whole “couple” thing that I’ve written about before. I can appreciate the fact that my girlfriends are in love with their husbands and that they want what’s best for them. I struggle a little bit with the idea of “wife as cheerleader” because it just screams to me of someone who is trying to justify her own worth by proving to others how great her partner is. I don’t know if that even makes sense, but that’s the only way I can describe it. To a large extent, it follows the pattern of someone who defines herself as half of a couple rather than as a whole person; that somehow her own accomplishments are not significant enough if her partner doesn’t also achieve his full potential. Perhaps my view on this is skewed because I have always been single and the friends in whom I see this behaviour have rarely (if ever) been without a boyfriend or husband. [The other factor is that the two woman that I am primarily basing this on are very high-achieving women who are married to men whose approaches to life are far less goal-oriented.] I really do believe that women (or men, for that matter) who have always had a partner are fundamentally different than those of us who have been single for most/all of our lives. I really struggle to be able to see things from their point of view. Perhaps I haven’t really tried hard enough.

And then I factor the weight issue into it and it just gets more complicated. For as long as I can remember, I have always believed that the reason I am still single is because I am overweight and therefore unattractive to men. Heck, part of the reason I gained all that weight in the first place was to insulate myself from attention so that I wouldn’t have to deal with intimacy and heartbreak. But now that I am on my way to a healthier and more attractive body, what if that WASN’T the reason men weren’t interested in me? What if there is some other character flaw that has kept them away? What if it isn’t the weight? What if it never was?

I guess where this starts to hit home for me is that I don’t see those "couple" qualities within myself. So does that mean that I am not the type of person who will ever find a partner because I am too selfish? Is it one of those examples of “sour grapes” where I hold disdain and contempt for something just because I don’t have it (or ever envisioning having it)?

But the reality is that I do want it; I just want it on my own terms. I refuse to believe it when people tell me that you HAVE to behave in a certain way (or worse – that you will WANT to behave in a certain way), simply to be part of a couple. Don’t tell ME how I should/will want to behave! I really struggle with this because I worry about just how much I will have to give up of myself when I’ve worked so hard to become the person I am and the life that I have. And I don’t think that it’s good or healthy to have to give up a part of who you are for someone else. I’m not looking for a partner to complete me in any way. I am not “dissatisfied” with my life the way it is, although I do feel that certain areas of my life are not as rich or as full as they could be.

Am I missing something here? Is there some other critical factor that I’ve overlooked?

Yesterday, I was walking home through my neighbourhood with my coffee after my run. Since it was such a hot day, most people had their doors/windows open. As I walked by, I noticed pets (a few dogs, mostly cats) sitting out in front of their homes. Through the open windows I could hear the sounds of families on a Sunday morning: children laughing, mothers singing, dogs barking. And all I could think about what how I was going home to my hot, empty apartment, all by myself. It made me very sad.

Like they say, when a couple argues about toilet paper, the argument is never about toilet paper – it’s always about something deeper than that. Clearly, there is some deeper level on which the behaviour of my friends is pissing me off. I just have to dig deeper to figure out what it is so that I can figure out a way to come to terms with it.

In the short term, I am going to do my training on my own for the rest of the season. I may meet up with people from time to time if their plans mesh with mine, but I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else’s workouts. Of course, this does not solve the ultimate question/dilemma about singledom vs. coupledom, but at least is relieves me of the stress of having to worry about other people’s needs.