What's Your Motto?

We all have little mantras and euphemisms we use in daily life and training...here are a few of my favorites, some I've come up with over the years and some courtesy of others:

DBAP

It's exactly what you think it is. Don't be a pussy. I came up with this one my junior year of college (2002). When you think of being one, stop doing that thing and man up. Sometimes, I'll admit, this is fairly difficult. It's in those exact moments that you can establish yourself as a man.

Get tough, asshole

This little gem is from OJ and his college days. Sometimes it's as simple as that - get tough. Asshole.

Diamonds in the haystack

The jury is still out on what this really means, but it sounds pretty sweet. Credit goes to Ben for this one. We think it had something to do with diamond in the rough + needle in the haystack, which I suppose would mean a difficult-to-find, unpolished athlete or something.

Hay in the barn

Another one of Ben's favorites, although I don't think it can be credited to him ultimately as it's a common saying. Again, not being from the midwest I have no idea what this fascination with hay is, but the idea is that you put hay in the barn and then later you're able to take it out - similar to my next one. Hay: it's not just for horses anymore.

Money in the bank

I tend to get made fun of for the way I race and think about racing - which is to go out fast and suffer at the end. Alright, so I've been racing that way forever and I like that style. It suits me. I look at it like I'm putting money in the bank by going out hard. If I go out slow, I'm not going to speed up along the way. If I go out fast, I've accrued some time, and therefore can slow down a little bit and still reach my goal. Now I'm starting to use it more to define training volume, similar to hay in the barn. Gotta deposit money now so you can take it out later!

This week I've been a little tired and somewhat under the weather. I haven't taken a day off since I started training again December 1st, so getting on near 3 months. But I'm doing okay. Keeping an eye on a building situation in my left knee, which has felt a little weird since Sunday's ride in Frederick. So this week I'm cutting out the doubles and trying to actively recover as best I can.

A few things about my outlook on this year:

• A little bit everyday goes a long way. I'm trying to make sure I get in something every day. You don't need to go out and kill it when you have a day off from work or because you feel like you're out of shape. That will take more out of you down the road and you'll wind up having to take a couple days off after a hard effort like that, or risk not recovering fully before your next real training session.
• Don't kill yourself. While I want to make sure I don't take a lot of time off, it's more important than anything to listen to your body. If you're not feeling it, don't push it. It's going to be a long year this year and you'll do yourself no good by crushing it now.
• You can race on speedwork, but won't get far without fitness. This is huge. All too often people are concerned with pace and distance. I see so many people using unimportant units of measure. If you don't have a solid base under your legs, you're just risking injury and burnout. Of my friends who have done Ironmans, I haven't seen one average under 7min per mile in the marathon yet. Not that it's not important to be faster than that, but you also have to get used to running that pace. Of course, I mean running that pace after a long bike ride. It's about time and effort, not speed and distance.

I'll share a few of my other tidbits that come from my phallus of knowledge over the weeks and months to come.