Ranty Rant Rant.

I've been thinking I kind of just want to sit on my butt.
and  I feel guilty about that.
and I feel scared about that...like, Dear GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

Just last month I submitted applications to do doctoral work in English,  applied for a few teaching jobs, decided I needed to work harder to build our coaching business, and started kicking my own arse in training so I can be super human at IM CDA.
One minute I am Ms. Overly Ambitious, and the next I am contemplating whether it's worth it to toast the bread or just eat it as is because toasting requires too much effort.
What does this MEAN? I mean, other than that I am mentally ill and I clearly need lithium. or Prozac. or something like that.

Which of course I already knew and so did you, but still. Why can't I at least be consistently mentally ill in like one way? Why do I have to be all I WILL CONQUER THE WORLD and prove I am worthy--and I will do it tomorrow because I need to prove it before I die, which could be GOD KNOWS, like tomorrow. It could! and the next minute I am so over that achievement stuff and really I just want to read trashy novels, hang with my dogs, and make banana bread--except that even making banana bread seems like too much of an effort.

Yesterday I sat in my bed in the middle of the day and read Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened, which is such a funny little book, but the point is I sat in bed and read and I could've been doing like 500 hundred different things to help move me toward the things I supposedly want--like a PhD, or a teaching job, or to make our coaching label as prominent as like ... CTS.

I have no point in my rant. I think I'm just really trying to figure out what to do next. I realize this is getting old. Or, actually, I haven't written for like three months, so maybe it's just old TO ME, and not you. Or maybe it's getting old for you, too. It probably is. How many times can I write about how conflicted I am before you all start pleading with me to PLEASE SHUT UP and just live and work like everyone ELSE?

Yep. I mean, I even annoy myself if it makes you feel better. And I have to be with me ALL THE TIME. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what it's like to live in this brain that WILL NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT THINGS IN ALL CAPS?

Dear Lord it is hard to be me.
I jest.

Anyway, this bleckity bleck is not what I intended to write about.

I intended to write about the performance management chart in Training Peaks.
Maybe I'll do that now, because I know you are on the edge of your seat like PLEASE, Mary. PLEASE TALK ABOUT the PMC in TP so I can begin to understand my CTL/ATL/TSB and my TSS! Right? Wasn't that what you were thinking?


Okay, well, the problem with talking about all this acronymic stuff is that I don't want to explain the whole thing. (I know some of you know to what I'm referring. Unfortunately, not enough of you know to what I'm referring, and since I'm feeling LAZY, I don't want to explain it.)

So I will speak in generalities.
Let's talk DATA.
I like data. I like data, even though I'm not a person who generally likes mathematical minutiae, but I like DATA when it comes to measuring, or better, predicting, performance. I like it because it's a bit like fortune telling.

I am the all knowing coach. If you just upload all information from that handy Garmin of yours, I will interpret the metaphoric lines, design a plan that is perfect and realigns those lines, and I will get you to KONA!
The problem is, that doesn't really work.
It doesn't work for many reasons. Here are two:

1. No one always uploads data. In fact, most people get lazy and upload like 75% of it max. 75% doesn't make for good data interpretation. In fact, it makes it meaningless. So scratch the performance management chart as a tool right there --even if with all the data it might possibly sort of work.
2. FTP estimation is freaking bogus--and the whole PMC stuff relies on the correct measurement of FTP.  There are so many variables involved in the estimation of FTP that can't be controlled for by the coach, and really, things like TSS don't mean JACK if the FTP isn't sort of well, spot on.

SO, many of you are thinking. Yes... yes you can estimate FTP.
But really... let's talk about that.
Inside or outside?
How tired or not tired (how negative or positive was your TSB going... bahaha) going into the test?
CADENCE? Because if it was below like 80 rpm at any point that's kinda cheating.
Did you really do that first five minutes all out -- ALL OUT? really? you really did?

Oh, I could go on and on.
So, I know. It's an estimate.
You know what we never ever do to measure the thing we are trying to measure with FTP? We never actually go at the door and do a 40K TT.
And why? It's too stressful.

So we overestimate the FTP and then train using that magic number... and yet, that's NOT too stressful?
ahem.

This is also a rant. And why am I ranting? It's just a rant kind of day for me, I think.

But truly, I think I rant out of frustration. Because I want to be able to palm read, and I want to be able to palm read ESPECIALLY for me. What combination of training, resting, and fueling is going to get me to the finish line with my arms triumphantly raised in the air?

I want to believe in data like I want to believe in God.

For that matter, I just want to believe, People.
Can you tell me what wrong road I took to end up such a cynic?

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One of my dogs, Chica, is eating a raw hide bone right now. It's the happiest moment of her day, I think.
When she came to live with me she had no fur. She wouldn't let me touch her. She itched and scratched all day. She was a bloody, scarred mess.
It's taken her a long time to adjust to life here, with us. She is Floridian: she detests the snow. She wears a coat from October to May.
So since last March, when she came to live with us, I have brought her to the vet again and again. My vet, (Dr. Durso--he's the best) has helped Chica. He figured out what she was allergic to (everything) and now she takes daily anti-itch medication and also has allergy shots every few weeks. Dr. Durso also discovered she had Heartworm. We treated that--which was a bit rough for her. She's better now.
Now she's furry. And warm. And although she is still pretty shy, and doesn't like strangers much, she plays with the other dogs and when she is snuggling and I scratch behind her ears she licks my cheeks.

I write this because just watching Chica enjoy her rawhide gives me peace.
And I wonder if I could just stop chasing the dream that if I can just write the right paper, or hit the right FTP, or find that magic unicorn that will allow me to think I am doing just fine, then I could spend the rest of my life just helping and loving Chica.
or the metaphoric Chica.
and that would be enough.