Head Games

I was excited about going to spinning at the Y today. The class was with Peggy, who really leads tough rides. Peggy led the class on Monday, where I was able to keep my heart rate in the 160s for some of the second half of the class. I wanted to see if I could could keep my heart rate that high for a longer time today, and see what it felt like to hit the 170s.

It didn't happen for a couple of reasons. First, Peggy decided to do an endurance class, focussing on keeping our heart rates at a lower, but constant rate throughout the workout. That meant that we weren't doing the heart-racing combinations of standing for 8-sitting for 8, standing for 4-sitting for 4, and standing for 2-sitting for 2 (with many multiples of each). We did a few 8 counts, but spent much more time standing for a minute or more, sitting for the same length of time.

But probably more important, my legs were dead! While I was able to walk up the stairs after my workout with Brandon yesterday, that workout was tough. I felt discomfort in my quads when we were warming up, but knew I'd get past that. But once I got past the discomfort, there was nothing there. And that feeling of have nothing there spread to my brain--I felt mentally dull, like both my brain and my legs were slogging through mud. That's when I knew I had to start the mind games.

I know from many years of working out that here's a big mental component to being exhausted. I think everyone has had the experience of being completely exhausted, and then something really interesting happens, and suddenly you're awake and have lots of energy.

I went to my old standards to get me going. My favorite is remembering a racket ball tournament I played in nearly 20 years ago, before I blew out my knee. I was in the semi-finals, and had played one or two matches that same day. I was dead in the final game--completely exhausted, dead legs and mind, absolutely nothing left. I started falling behind, and my opponent and the people watching all thought the match was over. Then I started putting everything I had into each point. Between points, I looked like a rag doll, but I wasn't conceeding a point. As I started moving ahead, I think the mental burden moved to my opponent--how can I be losing to this person who is close to dead? I went on to win! Unfortunately, the final match was shortly thereafter, and I was slaughtered.

My second favorite for mental toughness was remembering a playoff game between the Celtics and the Nets in 2002. The Celtics were down by 26 points in the second half and 19 points at the start of the fourth quarter. They never gave up and kept plugging away, and ended up winning the game. I'd never seen such an inspiring example of what it means to give everything and not give up.

So I thought about both of those situations while spinning today. My legs never did stop being dead, but my mind did. I got excited about just doing what I could do. My heart rate was generally in the 140s, not the 160s, but I enjoyed myself and had a good workout.