Multiple Sports; Why Being Worse Is Better

Folks, I'm going to level with you... there's a wonderful, under-appreciated side effect of being a multi-sport athlete.  When I devote time to climbing, running, and biking, I find I'm much more capable at being worse at all of them.

It's true, if I were a full-time climber, I would be dang good.  You'd be amazed, I promise.  But I don't climb full-time, partly because I get bored with being scared all the time, and partly because I can't help hurting my girly fingers (which, unfortunately, happen to be paired with a set of quite manly thighs).

So when I'm injured from climbing, or I just can't handle the adrenaline anymore, I run... preferably on trails, but also through the dreary, nighttime streets of Livingston if time is limited.  If I ran full-time, logging the 70-100 mile weeks like a proper ultramarathon runner should, I'd be dang good at that too... I just know it.  But there's a problem:  as soon as the outside temperatures are mellow, and my fingers are healthy, I can't help but caress the beautiful face of any vertical surface I come near (even the odd bathroom wall).  Climbing becomes my mistress as I cheat on my ultramarathon training.  I'm a terrible person.

Of course, there's another complication.  All would be fine if I just climbed and ran... I'm certain I'd still be pretty awesome at both.  But I have really sweaty, greasy fingers when I climb on hot days, and I feel like my head is going to explode when I run in the heat.  My wife often explains that I could eliminate a great deal of my suffering if I went shirtless, but as my brilliant, white chest clearly demonstrates, apparently I'm still a bit bashful.

So what does a busy-body like me do when it gets really hot?  Well, I begin dreaming of sailing down trails and roads on my bikes while bearing a giant, bug-eating grin.   Naturally, I am aware that I'd be pretty formidable on a bike if I was a full-time cyclist; but I have a problem with the concept of riding wheel-to-wheel in a pelaton of 100 bikes all traveling at 25mph.  Also, as part of my religious belief, I don't subscribe to bike trainers... It is a must unnatural use of a wheel to make it spin in place.  Therefore, I refuse to train in the winter for races that terrify me in the summer.  I certainly enjoy my recreational rides on summer days, but it would seem that as soon as the temperatures plummet, I find myself forsaking my hard-earned, summertime butt calluses as I take to climbing and running once again.

Okay, so now that we've covered in detail why I'm incapable of being a single sport athlete, and why that makes me sub-par at a number of things.  Lets take a moment to address the main idea here... why being worse is indeed better.

Well, it's quite simple really.  If a guy does three different sports, his act of perpetually cheating on one sport with another sport leaves him fully aware that he'll never be remarkable at any of them.  That's when he gets to just shrug his shoulders, say, "meh," and forget about the pressures associated with constantly feeling the need to train and perform.  He is now free to aimlessly walk through the woods, caressing and fantasizing about beautiful boulders and cliffs.  He is now free to stop for a sandwich on a mountain top without the need for a better round-trip time.  His sports become his escape, his counselor, and his personal trainer.  He is a lucky dude.

Injuries Are Our Friends!

There I was, exactly 100 feet from the summit of Baldy Mountain.  My shoes were loose, my legs and feet were numb from post-holing through a couple of miles of snow, and then the inevitable happened:  my ankle rolled sideways, I felt a pop, and the dull pain and swelling began.  I immediately stopped, cinched up my shoes (as I should have done five minutes earlier), and kept moving.  I was looking at a snowy five miles and 4000-feet of downhill to the trailhead, and there was no time to stop and let the ankle begin stiffening any more than necessary.

The view of the ridge ahead from the site of the ankle sprain.
Still had to run to the furthest visible point on the ridge,
then begin the descent to the "M" trailhead.
I got some mental training in that day.  :  )

After a significant amount of whimpering, an incidental sunglasses-snapping while flailing through the snow, and a really tired right leg from compensating, I arrived back at the trailhead.  Having extensive experience with ankle sprains, I knew by that point that it was a fairly mild grade 2 sprain... not enough to threaten proper training for the Bighorn Mountain Run, but enough to cause about a month of mileage cut-back.

Ironically, my ankle sprain was well-timed with the return to full strength of my left middle finger from a ligament injury while climbing back in December.  Though my nightly runs are presently on hold, I feel like a model in a makeup store every time I get to go climb on my wall.  Two months of grabbing big holds and not being able to climb hard are done, and now I get to climb on whatever I want.  To make things even better, we are a mere few weeks away from the spring climbing season.  What timing!

It would seem there is something downloaded into us humans that causes us to desperately want exactly what we can't have.  As such, one of the best ways to curb our apathy and indifference that tends to grow toward a sport we love is to end up with an injury and have it taken away for a period of time.

It was just under a year ago when my training for my first ultra came grinding to a creep.  I'd had it with running through the dark, windy streets of Livingston.  I'd had it with the aching and nausea of the long training runs.  Aside from a medium to long run every weekend, which was largely motivated by fear, I'd nearly quit training during the months of April and May.  Boy, did I feel the effects during the ultra in June!

This ankle sprain comes at an opportune time.  I had really high motivation the two weeks before the injury, and now I can't help but sit here reading running blogs and watching videos of my ultramarathon heroes, all while thinking through my post-injury plan of attack.  I feel a bit like a caged beast, and I can't wait for spring break when, following a month of rehab and rebuilding my mileage, I lace up my running shoes for my first multiple-hour training run since the month of February.  By then the trails will be melting off, my motivation will be renewed, and I'll be ready for two great months of training leading up to my second ultramarathon.  It could very well be that this year will be a breakout performance compared to last, and it may have a lot to do with the renewal of motivation supplied by my fateful ankle sprain atop Baldy Mountain.