Athletic walls...

I recently got some flack from the wife of a person in the Nelson Triathlon club for saying that doing the Vancouver Marathon was no big deal, and that the dreaded 20 mile mark and the way it eats up people is only a myth.  She said she was disappointed with me for that, which kinda got my blood boiling, and inspired me to write this about hitting the wall in sport...

I know all about, and have also read about hitting the wall in sport.  I started learning that in my early teens when I would go so hard that at times I would start throwing up, but that wasn’t enough to stop, or deter me.  I know about having body breakdowns when it seems your body just doesn’t want to listen to your mind anymore, and you turn into jelly.  It never matters about falling down as long as the desire is there to get back up.  I learned about this year’s before I ever got sick.  I kicked the livin’ hell outta my body by givin’ ‘er beyond what my body wanted…and I loved it.  The feeling of having your heart pop outta your chest and gettin’ all woozy and light-headed as hallucinations start to set in is awesome…when your eyes start to water and go bloodshot, snot comes pouring outta your nose, and you start slobberin’ uncontrollably on yourself.  There is no feeling like it.  It was always great to hit weights so hard that I would get up from a set and start to stagger around like I was drunk, almost feeling like I was gonna blackout.  I’d just walk it off and get right back at it…  Then, when I was 19 I got sick and everything changed (close to 15 years ago)…

I thought I knew what pain was all about, but what I was soon to learn is that I had absolutely no comprehension of what real pain and endurance was.  It had gotten completely redefined.  I have been through pain that couldn’t possibly exist.  Even years into this new world of in-definable pain, when I had been through what the body couldn’t possibly do, I thought I had seen it all.  Nothing would surprise me anymore, but then my body would turn it up even more.  I would get blown away by what the body was capable of doing when it felt like having a revolution against the rest of me.  The first few times I had been bed-ridden and barely able to move, and then eventually on a cane, all I said was, “I don’t care if it hurts…all I want to do is be able to walk again.”  That is something that helps propel me when I do these races that have absolutely no merit for comparison to such a thing.  Even when I was too weak to stand I would still try to go for power walks…only to repeatedly collapse onto the pavement.  When I have been so sore that I could only stand because it hurt too much to sit or lie down I would eventually collapse to the ground because my legs couldn’t hold me anymore.  When I was crumpled up in a mangled mess of pain on the floor I would say to myself, “Oh well, I’m too sore to get up, so I might as well try to do some push-ups while I’m stuck down here.”  I would squeak out one or two, until my body would give out and make me splat on the ground again.  Too many times I had smashed my face off the floor, and at times come close to bustin’ my nose.  But then I’d try to do another one ‘cause I was still too sore to pick myself up off the floor…only to smash to the ground again. 

I shake my head and laugh at rich spoiled pro athletes who sit out of competition because of something as miniscule as muscle spasms and cramps.  That is all just a big frickin’ joke…  Athletic racing walls are something that have long since been in my rearview mirror.  They’re non-existent to me…I don’t let them exist!  To me I just see it as something that is all in your head.  Maybe think of it this way from a different perspective…

--A Zen Buddhist monk can break chunks of iron over his head and push away a spear with his throat…

--A native shaman can break through ice to swim in the water, and then generate enough body heat to start sweating profusely…

--People survived and escaped POW and Concentration camps…

--A rock climber had a boulder fall and pin him…he had to cut his own hand off with a Swiss Army knife, and still was able to get himself out of a canyon to get help…

--I’m not even gonna get into Terry Fox and Rick Hansen…

--People have been attacked by grizzly bears, and still managed to make it through several km’s of bush with a chewed up scalp and broken bones to get help… 

If they can do that, racing walls are nothin’ in comparison, and can surely be busted through…or at the very least, be moved to the other side of a finish line—especially if you have done any kind of training to prepare.  Like I said, it’s all in your head.  Period! 

You go through whatever your body throws at you, and the worse it gets, and the more it hurts, when your entire everything is screaming in agony, you do one thing, and one thing only…  You look your pain right in the eyes and say, “Bring it on, and give me the best you got ‘cause you ain’t nothin’, and you sure as hell ain’t stoppin’ nothin’!!!”  Bustin’ through that kind of stuff gives you strength, and also a much deeper sense of accomplishment, which in turn makes it all feel so good…  So when I say these races aren’t hard to do I mean it.  I have always insisted that they are hard to win, but they surely aren’t hard to do.  You go when they say go, and keep going til the finish line is behind you, and then deal with the aftermath afterwards.  It is as simple as that…  Charge now…Coma later…  You’ll get over it, it might take a day or two, or a week or more, but you will get over it.  What is impossible to get away from is the thought and feeling of quitting.  No matter what you do, that can never be escaped, and is a nasty feeling that can be virtual torture.  Often times when I am basically dying out on course, aside from the fact that I am still having a lotta fun despite it all, the only thing that keeps me going is the fear of quitting.  I don’t see any wall, I only see what will happen if I let it get the best of me. 

These so-called athletic walls are all just a state-of-mind.  They are in the minor leagues next to real pain…trust me when I say that you don’t want to find out what that statement really means.  Don’t give them power over your ambitions and goals.  Don’t let them exist.  The mind can pull you through a lot if you have the desire and discipline to let it.  Your mind can give you the ability to transcend these walls and make them disappear.  It all depends on how bad you want it.