On not not training

I'm finding it harder to not train than I had anticipated.

My idea was to ride bicycle, cross country ski, run, lift weights, swim according to how I feel, for fun, with no set goal or plan to follow. It's a zen thing, if you want to know, an effort to live in the moment rather than the future.

So I told myself, when I got on put my bicycle on the rollers in the basement, that I'm just going to do it for fun. Put on some tunes, spin for a while, and not make a big deal about it. It would be more of a music-listening session, really, than anything else. I just would happen to be pedaling while listening.

However, it really takes a wide stretch of imagination to consider riding on rollers or a stationery bike or any type of indoor bicycle riding fun or relaxed. After my first session, my lower back rebelled. This, of course, is due to a number of factors: a weak core, a flabby gut and age. Now, I would like to ride a bicycle a lot this summer, and I want to ride far and I want to ride fast.

So I've decided that I need to do core exercises, stretches and need to ride more to build those back muscles up for the load to come this summer. That's starting to a look a lot like training. Furthermore, I've made a soft commitment to ride three or four times a week, making it seem more and more like a plan.

Finally, I've been noodling around with the idea of doing a one-day ride from Wausau to St. Paul, a 180-mile jaunt. That's 10 hours at 18 mph, not counting stops for water, food, changing a tire or anything else. That would require a serious commitment to riding. I think I might have to train for that.

None of this even counts the fact that I plan to sign up for the New York City Marathon, and all that would be required of me if I were to get into that race.

I'm not sure where this all leaves me. Probably somewhere between a Type-A competitive person and a laid back Zen master. But we all know how my grand intentions end up, so God only knows where I'll be on the scale two weeks from now.

They are not goals; they are things to do

Although I have retired from training, and have no goals, there are things I want to do.

And as winter is slowly winding down, some of these things are preying on my mind.

One is to run another marathon. This will be hard to do without training. So instead of training, I think I'll just try to run more. It will be fun. And then if I want to run a marathon, and find one that will let me in -- yeah, this means you, New York -- I will do it.

The second is to ride a bicycle from my home in Wausau to St. Paul, in one day. It's 180 miles, and I've never rode more than 100 miles in on day. Again, this will be hard to do without training. I will try to ride more to prepare for it.

You might argue that there's little difference between training and running more. Or training and biking more. It's just semantics. I know you're saying it, I can hear your sneer from here.

But there is a BIG difference.

If there is one thing I've learned about myself, it is that I respond appallingly to pressure. I choke. I gasp. I wheeze. I start shaking and end up curling up in a little ball in a corner of the basement. So anything I want to do should be pressure free.

And if there is one thing that will motivate me, it's to tell me that I can't do it. I've been told often enough that I probably shouldn't run another marathon, and that riding to Minneapolis would be a foolish thing to do. That why I want to do them.