DEEP HOUSE CHILL

it is easy to lose focus during a five hour trainer ride...this whole idea of being present or mindfull, is not passive; there is no such thing as passive mindfulness. the mind tends to want to split between random reverie and arbitrary association while the the watchful self drifts into some un-connected space of psychic emptiness. being "here and now", fully present in the moment, is an active inclination, an up-stream swim, if you will. strangely, it does not seem to be our "natural" state.

at times, we connect to emotional vortices; streams of semi-consciousness that feel more real and alive yet lack the full dimension of presentness. alot of training takes place in this head space. the watching mind here is swept away by intensity.

historically, for me, 90% of what i felt was "good training" was taking place in this head space, where i was riding on the wave of some emotion, usually anger, maybe mixed with something else, maybe some kind of emotional cocktail, but something in the direction of action...not the deeper aspects of despair and anxiety, those would not lead to cool training sets.

when riding an emotion, one can feel adrenaline surging...the heart racing, muscles contracting, lungs expanding, all of it can be a direct expression of anger, rage, transcendence...usually it is about some kind of somatic expression of primary narcissism. very powerful, but, unfortunately, very labile and prone to swing in the opposite direction.

just like a tempestuous weather system; emotional states tied to narcissism can dissipate rapidly and leave one feeling rather deflated. what the fuck am i doing???? legs feel like jelly. can't hit any numbers. fat. bloated, empty, generally sucking shit...hard to feel "hard" when this happens...when emotions are the waves we ride then training is about as mindless as things get. one's watching self is like a speck of something in a glass of swirling water.

it might seem like this is going with the flow, except that the flow in this case is a decoy, a shadow, not the whole picture, not the entirety of the real thing. to get caught in these states is like getting stuck reading an index of a book and not realizing that there is a whole world of text going on...

pause...

i hate death as much as anyone. i hate ageing, it infuriates me. i still don't feel old. i haven't paid any great price to the grim reaper as yet (not consciously anyways). yet, i can't help but feel a sense of desperation as i build into IM Texas this year.

 how many more can i do?for  how many years can i get faster? when will i stop improving and what will that mean? when will my belly just sag a bit no matter what the fuck i do and how will i respond to that?

big questions. existential questions. shallow maybe. but to a raging and fragile narcissist such as myself these are crucial issues in the nexus of training/life/ironman. also, they highlight the essential futility in all of this training. i no longer feel that this is a bad thing. futility is built into our state of being. no-one can fight entropy. i now see all this ironman training as akin to a giant sand mandala being built by zen monks. it is absorbing, hard, and effortful, yet completely futile and destined to be swept away. that is the whole point...

presence of mind...mindfulness, being here. that is how we started. let's get back to it.

music plays a big role in all of this for me. music and training are like gin and tonic, wine and food; they just go together, one accentuating the other's existence.

traditionally, my greatest training moments have come during lonely hours on the trainer, or sometimes running, with the bluetooth headphones pumping heavy metal into my CNS. black sabbath, dio, goatwhore, metallica, priest, maiden... the list goes on, but generally it is angry, driven music that augments some of my greatest moments of inner suffering and glory. and this has been good. very, very good sometimes, but yet it falls a bit short, in the ways i have tried to describe above.

lately i have been able to train while watching movies or documentaries on netflicks. this breeds a different kind of mind-set. it flows forth from a different kind of experience that i believe could be a sign of athletic if not intra-psychic maturity. these are low-key, low HR, low intensity workouts. these are the mark allen, go slow to go fast workouts where watching a movie just seems like the right thing to do.

yes, i know that most gurus say you should never sit on a trainer and just ride steady for hours on end, but to me, the trainer affords a perfect opportunity to do so. it is the perfect place to control your effort, the perfect place to spend hours training your tissues to burn fat.  fuck what the gurus say.

i honestly think that the reason most people hate the trainer so much is that they just can't stand to be alone with their thoughts. the existential angst is overwhelming and something most people would rather avoid.  said another, less kind way; most people just ain't that interesting, but more than that, they are noxious, life has made them so, and they can't quite stand to be alone with themselves. they are their own worst company...ironic given the extreme narcissism they often outwardly display.

the turbo trainer, taken in this context, is like the ultimate tool of zen buddhism. it is a path to self confrontation.

the need for stimulation is closely related to the same kind of existential emptiness that leads to riding emotions for their own sake. why the need to be outside? why the need to seek out distractions and sensory input that are only tangential to the real purpose of what your are doing? , those who cling to riding outside, self righteously,  as though it were some kind of religion are quite right. it is that. a religion. a distraction from yourself. it stems, i believe, from a need not to face yourself.

because there is nothing else to do, except to face yourself while on a trainer if you approach it mindfully. there is you and the adaptations you are striving to create. that is pretty fucking boring. like watching a plant grow. but, just like watching a plant grow, when you observe what is happening outside of real time, in slow-motion, then what you have is a dance of epic beauty not normally visible to the naked eye.

back to music. all of this is why i have become more attracted to the kind of house music that is posted up top (assuming that some corporate assholes don't decide to get rid of it).  the lack of lyrics, the incessant beats, the constant meandering. all very much like a long ride, like the long road to adaptation, like the metabolic and physiologic processes that are going on as we ride for hours and hours and hours, in service of our egos, in service of surpassing our egos, in the name of building a better ironman bike split. and something about this music makes room for other things. it seems to encourage contemplation rather than inspiration. it fosters a more mindful approach to time spent on the trainer.

it has been a while since i have been so moved to write. this is because i have been torn, split, busy out of my splintered mind. but now, in the tropical heat, in the mindless boredom of life on the compound in a dangerous but developing country, in the midst of immersion in one's in-laws, in the embrace of the most atypical of winter training camps, this is where my mind clears enough to begin to voice some of the reflections i have witnessed....

file this one under enduro-philosophy. belly button self absorption with a self critical eye, written for no-one, except me and some ill formed mental representations that litter my mind...i hope you enjoyed, as i did.