That's the line that's been going through my head almost daily for the past four weeks, ever since my off-season got extended well beyond what I'd intended. (And yes, it's an Animal House reference.)
I'll back up by saying that I am a strong believer in the importance of an off-season, on having some time when your focus isn't on training: When fitting in your workout isn't the driving force behind how you organize every day. When you have the option to go for a hike or take a yoga class instead of a swim/bike/run workout. When you ease back on the miles and give your muscles and your joints some time to recover.
And that's why I extended my off-season from the originally planned four weeks to a solid, plenty-of-time-to-get-antsy, eight weeks. I was really enjoying the hiking and the yoga and totally blowing off masters swim and drinking margaritas at lunch. Part of the reason I enjoyed it so much, I think, is because I knew (or rather believed, incorrectly) that it was pretty finite. And then on September 9th I developed a stress reaction in my foot. (How I managed to do that on reduced mileage is a story of total idiocy that I won't include here. Just chalk it up to my being a moron.)
Suddenly my off-season was extended to ... twelve weeks? sixteen? I thought I handled the news pretty well, but looking back on it I was hilariously, quietly, unknowingly, losing my marbles. I figured I was really taking things in stride because I wasn't making a big deal of the stress reaction. Sure, I couldn't run for 4-6 weeks, but I could swim and bike and I wasn't training for anything so really it wasn't a big deal. People would ask me what was new, and I wouldn't even tell them about the stress reaction. I mean, when a triathlete doesn't talk about an injury you know that shit has gotten weird.
So, I could't run. I was just working out aimlessly, with no goals and no plan and no purpose. Fall is crazy, crazy quiet when you're a triathlon coach because most of your athletes are in their off-season, so I didn't have much work to do. And since I didn't have a lot of work, and didn't have to be feeling good to tackle some tough workout the next day, I was consuming a glass (or two or three) of wine every night. (But if I average out the whole year including my big training weeks where I didn't drink at all, it's really totally fine.)
Fat, Drunk, and Out of Shape is No Way to Go Through Life.
Clearly it was time to pull it together: I found a plan on TrainerRoad and started burying myself in some sweet spot bike workouts. I hatched plans for multiple projects: I'm going to write a blog! (Evidence of this effort is obvious.) I'm going to finally organize all my coaching systems and notes into a Filemaker database! (That's what happens when you were once a management consultant.) I was at least keeping myself occupied ... but something was still off.
It took me another week to put my finger on it, but then it hit me: I am filling my weeks with coffees and lunches and have absolutely nothing to say during any of them. I don't even know who I am when I'm not training for something.
Does that statement make me sound totally unhinged? Or at least massively addicted to training? Sure, I'll own that. But batshit crazy or not, this is where I am. So my off-season now has an official expiration date of Oct 31st. It's time to pick an Ironman for 2018 and start setting some goals for next year. And then maybe I'll start to feel normal again.