Tag Archives: West Point

How Do You Eat an Elephant? – Motivation To Move Forward

  By Ann Brennan | April 30, 2013 - 4:09 am |
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Written by Ann Brennan

I wrote this post back in July of 2012 because I was struggling with the motivation to move forward in my Ironman training. It was a personal post but over the past year it has been viewed by thousands of runners and triathletes and I have received dozens of emails telling me that this has become their motivation, their mantra. As I begin my journey to becoming a Boston Qualifying Marathoner, I have come back to it, to remind me that I can do this, one bite at a time.

I don’t wanna.  I am tired and I just want to go back to sleep.  I am tired and I just want to sit on the couch with my book. I am just too tired.  Oh and did I mention hungry? I am so hungry. Twenty-four hours a day I am hungry, starving really.

 

So to sum it up…I am tired and hungry and I don’t wanna go run/bike/swim/lift. Besides, there is laundry to do, kids to feed, a house to clean and letters to write to my son, not to mention work.  Don’t you think I should just skip this workout?

 

This has been my train of thought every morning for the past two weeks.  With twelve weeks to go to my first Ironman, Coach Jeff has begun to ramp up the mileage.  Suddenly I find myself with two workouts a day several times a week.  When I am not working out I am either sleeping or eating when I should be taking care of work or home obligations.  Ironman training is not easy.  But I guess I didn’t expect it would be.

 

So, how have I managed to get out each day?  How have I dragged my sorry butt out of bed, plopped it on a bike and gotten on my way? How have I pushed through workouts I have had no desire to do?

 

Well it certainly has not been because of my physical prowess.  That much I am sure of.  For the most part it has been through a series of mental tricks.

 

Before Blaise left for Beast Barracks at West Point this summer he asked an older cadet for his best tips on getting through the six weeks.  His friend told him, you get through it the same way you eat an elephant – one bite at a time.

 

That’s the approach I have been taking to Ironman training.  I don’t have 10 workouts this week. I don’t even have two workouts tomorrow morning. I have one workout tomorrow morning and all I have to do is get through that one.

 

Yes, I know that there is another one waiting for me when I get home from that one but all I am worried about when I start out each day is that one bite – the first workout.  Then I can think about the next bite.

 

In the past the first bite has been getting out of bed.  But this summer getting out of bed has been the easy part.  Although I am not a morning person and hate the idea of getting out of my comfy bed, I am able to pull myself out each morning by reminding myself of my West Point son and the fact that he has no choice.  He hears the calls of his commanding officer and he has to get up no matter how tired he is.  So who am I to lie there basking in the comfort of a bed when there is work to be done?

 

But still, the minute my feet hit the floor I begin the whining.  I start in on the “I don’t wannas.”  And I have to remember to concentrate on that one bite, that one workout and sometimes just that one set.

 

This week there have been swim workouts that I literally got through by promising myself that all I had to do was that one 800 yard warm up, then I could go home.  Then changing it to the next set and the next set.

 

Ironman training is hard but the next workout isn’t.  If I can get through that one workout, take that single bite, I can get to the next one and by the time I get to October 20th, that elephant will be all gone.

Dialing in the Mental State

  By Ann Brennan | September 17, 2012 - 6:00 am |
1 Comment

On July 4th, 2004 I woke up as giddy as a little kid on Christmas morning.  It was Ironman morning. I had been training for two years for this day and it was finally here.  Unfortunately, the Ironman finish, the announcement of “Ann Brennan you are an Ironman,” was not to be.  I DNF’ed on the bike and my heart was shattered into a million pieces.

 

Eight years later and I am five weeks away from my first Ironman finish.  But there is a difference this time.  This time I know how heart broken not finishing could be and I know how many things will be out of my control on race morning.

 

Yesterday I received a wonderful video message from Coach Jeff telling me how great my training has gone.  He went on to talk about the final stages of planning and how important it is that we begin to dial in my mental state.

 

“Start telling yourself that you are going to have a great Ironman,” he said.

 

And suddenly I froze.  In 2004, I thought, no I knew I was going to have a great Ironman.  I had no doubts about the type of day I would be having.   And then I found myself in the back an ambulance watching by bike being loaded in the back of a pickup.  I was done.

 

Should I worry this time?

 

Maybe.  Because yes there are so many things that are out of my control, but the truth is that I am not worried.  First because I know that I can survive a DNF.  If it happens because of something out of my control, I can accept that.

 

But most importantly I am not worried because I have had Jeff throughout this process. I have completed the workouts and have seen the improvements over time.  I know I can do this.  I know I am prepared.

 

Five weeks to Ironman and already I am like a little girl anticipating Christmas morning.  I am ready to put all of this work to the test. I am ready to finally hear, Ann Brennan, you are an Ironman.

A Fortunate Coincidence

  By Ann Brennan | July 12, 2012 - 8:07 am | ,
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I did not plan it this way.  When I signed up for the Beach to Battleship Ironman Distance Triathlon I didn’t know my son would be attending West Point – The United States Military Academy.  I didn’t realize that he would begin Cadet Basic Training (Beast Barracks) just as my training ramped up.

 

By the time I put the two life changing events together I began to think that maybe my workouts would give me a way to commiserate with him.  Maybe I would be able to say to him that I got a little bit of what he was going through because I too I have to rise early and do workouts I don’t always want to do.  I too have to keep pushing even when I want to just lie down and give up.  I thought maybe this would help him, maybe it would boost him up a bit.

 

And maybe it is.  Maybe knowing that his old mom is working hard towards a goal gives him a little inspiration to keep pushing forward.  But the coincidence has triggered something I didn’t expect.  It is helping me.

 

I have wanted to do Ironman since I was 13 years old and watched Julie Moss crawl across the Ironman finish line. I have dreamed of and dreaded this time in my life for a couple of decades.  But now that it is here it scares the hell out of me.  Every morning I wake up and think, “Do I really want to do this?”

 

If Blaise were not going through Beast Barracks, if I didn’t know that he has to rise early every morning for PT, then rush through a day being told what to do every single second of the day, if I didn’t know he would suffer through the House of Tears, maybe I could give up.  Maybe I could just decide this was not that important to me.

 

But he is.  He is going through Beast Barracks.  He is learning how to live a life completely different from anything he has ever experienced and he is doing it because he knows that in the end, it will be worth it.

 

So this morning, when the alarm went off for my 6am ride and my first reaction was to throw the phone across the room, I thought twice.  I dragged myself out of bed and I put on that oh so attractive spandex and headed down the stairs.  When I started thinking that maybe I should take it easy today, because after all I am pretty tired, I thought about Blaise with his commanding officer shouting, “Is that all you have New Cadet Brennan!” and I changed my attitude.  Even at the end of the ride when I thought, “Well that was faster than I expected,” I pushed a little harder because I knew that is what will be expected of Blaise.

 

I did not plan it this way.  I did not plan to be going through one of the toughest challenges of my life at the same time Blaise faces one of the toughest challenges of his life.  If I had, if I could have worked it out to fit my plans it would be the opposite way around.  My challenge would be fueling his efforts.  My work would be boosting him up.  Instead, he is boosting me up.  He, my son, my New Cadet is pushing me to be better, to be stronger, to be the best that I can be.

Becoming a West Point Mom

  By Ann Brennan | March 13, 2012 - 10:00 am |
7 Comments

by Ann Brennan

I am in training. Yes, I am training for my first Ironman in October but right now I am in training for something I am not even sure how to prepare

Blaise with his friend Thomas, a current cadet

for. I am in training to be the mom of a West Point Cadet.

Two weeks ago my friend and first running partner, Melissa emailed me after reading my post about having mixed feelings about Blaise going to West Point.

“I am in tears,” she said.

She later told me that it was a combination of imagining what it would be like to send her son off to be a soldier and remembering the two year old I would describe during long training runs before our first marathon.

Until I spoke with Melissa I was floundering. I felt loss and useless. But after the conversation I realized that even though I have these mixed feelings, Blaise has made his decision. He is going to West Point. And I have to be on board.

For seventeen years, I have prided myself on being the mom that teaches my children independence. I am the mom who gives them the tools they will need to get through life but is always available in a supporting role.

When he was learning to ride a bike, this meant teaching him the basics, then letting go but standing by with Band-Aids and kisses. As he grew and entered his first school experience it meant helping him learn the skills he needed to be a good student but not doing a project for him when he put it off to the last minute. When he entered high school, I let go even more, allowing him to choose his courses throughout and only stepping in to speak to teachers once and only then because he was in the hospital having his appendix removed.

Now my supporting role will be even smaller. Looking at his schedule starting on July 2nd when I drop him at the Academy, I was shocked to realize that I will see him less than six weeks out of every year, including holidays and summer break. That is not a lot of time to show him that I am still here for him. My real parenting is almost over.

So I am preparing.

That has included the small things – finding out where to buy his boots and how to break them in, finding out what his blood type is, making final doctors appointments for him before he leaves and buying every card in Hallmark to make sure I am well supplied for those 6 weeks that mail from home is most important.

But it has most importantly it has meant getting to know what it will mean for him to be a West Point Cadet. Immersing myself in a culture that is foreign to me in order to be able to relate to him and his experience when I do see him.
In the past two weeks I have read everything I could get my hands on about the experience he will face.

I started reading The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education even as Blaise was making his final decision on an overnight visit to the Academy. Lying in the predawn darkness of the Hotel Thayer I read about Craig Mullaney’s Beast Summer experience and laughed out loud as he made mistake after mistake after mistake. As I read Mullaney’s book I pictured my son facing the same trials and tribulations.

Although I pictured my son throughout the book, I didn’t cry as he made his way through the ranks at West Point. I didn’t cry when he graduated, second in his class and headed to both Ranger School and Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. I didn’t cry as he fell in love or was heartbroken by his parents’ divorce. I did however sit stunned when he lost a soldier in Afghanistan. And finally, in the last chapter of the book as he prepared to send his younger brother to West Point, knowing that he will one day face the hardships of war, I literally sobbed.

Knowing that I will have to let him go so completely ripped at my heart. But still I have to prepare not just to let him go but to be a West Point mom as well.

The book was a glimpse into the life of a West Point Cadet and though it was a good story it was also a great way to learn the terms I will face in the next year.

After completing The Unforgiving Minute I moved on to Absolutely American and have started watching National Geographic’s Surviving West Point. Will any of what I am reading relieve my worries? Will it make it easier to leave him on R day or be out of touch with him for the six weeks after that? I don’t know.

As my children grew up I taught them to be the people they wanted to be. I taught them to rely on themselves and find strength in their mistakes and I taught them to have fun.

I don’t play soccer but when they started playing, I learned the rules. I supported the teams they supported and followed the results of those teams. When they played, I cheered from the sidelines whether they scored, blocked a shot or got schooled by another player and I shouted, “have fun” repeatedly as a reminder that there was more to the game scoring.

As a soldier’s mom, I wont’ be shouting “have fun” from the sidelines but I will remind him to be the person he wants to be, have strength when things get difficult and by learning everything I can about what he will experience I am telling him that I am here when he needs me.

This is uncharted territory for me but Blaise is and will always be that baby I watched in amazement only seconds after he was born and whether I am a good West Point mom or not, I will always be that mom that fell in love with him more every day since the day he was born.

The Surprises

  By Ann Brennan | February 14, 2012 - 8:06 am |
3 Comments

Before I had my first child I knew I wanted to be a mom. But that is where the knowing stopped. From the moment I discovered I was pregnant my life has been a symphony of “I didn’t knows.”

I didn’t know how worried I could be about a child before they were even born. I didn’t know how much I could love him before I had even held him in my arms. I had no idea that I could be happy when a nurse woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me that I needed to old this new baby because he was inconsolable without me.

Over the years I have been shocked by the power all of my children have held over my heart. I had no clue how much fun I could have sitting down to lunch alone with my son or daughter, talking about their thoughts on the world around them.

I didn’t know how much my heart would break the first time one of their friends caused them real heartbreak.

I have loved every minute of being a parent but I was not prepared for it and seventeen years later there are still surprises around every corner.

Blaise, my oldest, was just given an appointment to his first choice, the United States Military Academy – West Point. When my husband brought the envelope in from the mail we could tell from its heft that it was an appointment and my heart simultaneously jumped and sank.

Blaise has worked so hard for this, not just during the application process or even just during his high school years, but starting in middle school when he began preparing in earnest to get into the most prestigious colleges. And though he is not one of the students that knew from a young age that he wanted to attend a service academy, the thought he put into this decision cannot be doubted.

It began with a seed planted by Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. As Blaise sat in the car beside me, listening to the audiobook, a light went on inside him and he made a decision to live his life in the way he wanted. He decided to go for his biggest dreams and not be hemmed in by what he thought others expected of him.

That was the first step on his path to West Point. This came in the unlikeliest of places – the stunningly beautiful Cornell University campus. We had visited West Point the day before and he was not convinced. He was sure what he was looking for was a more traditional university experience so we had headed to Cornell.

When I saw the cute little, short-skirted coed who would be giving us our tour I thought, “Well this is it. He is going to love this place.”

But halfway through that tour he turned very serious and when it came to a close and we were given the option of doing a tour of some of the engineering buildings, he declined.
As we were walking off campus, he told me that he knew what he wanted. He wanted to go to a service academy. The tour at Cornell had convinced him that he wanted the “whole person development” that is offered by the academy and he wanted to serve our country. He said this without a shade of doubt.

Since that day he has worked every day on the process of getting into the academies. Even as I write this he is preparing for our trip to visit the Air Force Academy so he can make a more informed decision about the service in which he will serve.

So, I was happy when I saw the envelope. I was proud that his efforts have been rewarded. But at the same time my heart sank. Suddenly I realized that not only will my son be leaving my house in a few short months for university but that when he does, he will return as a soldier. And of course the realities of the dangers he faced hit and my heart flipped about with worry.

Even after seventeen years, I am taken aback by the emotions that come over me when my children are involved. I knew I wanted children. I knew I would love them with all of my heart and I knew there would be days when my heart would break or leap for joy but I didn’t know and am still surprised to find that all of these emotions can occur simultaneously.

Ironman Fun

  By Ann Brennan | October 20, 2010 - 8:32 pm | , ,
4 Comments

Earlier this week I met with a group of Ironman Louisville finishers. I sat across from them, feeling a little inadequate for about five minutes as they introduced themselves and I realized how much further these guys have pushed themselves than I ever had. They have completed my dream distance. The feeling of inadequacy was quickly replaced with an excitement that I found difficult to explain.

I was not there with them. At that point I hadn’t seen pictures or video from the event but there was such an energy coming from these athletes that I found myself wrapped up in their story. I felt like I was a part of it. I could put myself on the course with them.

To see Bill's video click on the picture

Of the four finishers, Bill Murphy was the only newbie. This was his first Ironman ever. The other three talked about the 85 degree temperature of the murky brown river, the 102 degree temperatures along the course, the cramping and puking athletes, the pain of the day. Bill smiled. His answer when I asked him how the temperatures affected him was that he had trained in it so it “wasn’t that bad.” To which the other athletes laughed and told me I needed to see his pictures to understand. Ron Bowman, a three time Ironman finisher, including his first one in Kona, said, “Bill, had the perfect attitude. He had fun – the whole time.”

Once I made it home I looked through the pictures and video the group had provided and I saw exactly what they meant. Coming out of that 85 degree river, Bill looks like he is ready to break into dance. On the bike, he could be on an easy weekend ride. Keeping in mind that it was 102 degrees out there and he had already swam 2.4 miles, was in the process of riding 112 miles and would then have to follow up with a 26.2 mile run, you might expect some sort of nerves to show through in this picture in particular but no.

Finally, coming across the finish line, after a grueling 140 mile day in which over 800 athletes dropped out, after being on the course for 14 hours and 2 minutes, he is still smiling and best of all is the “I am an Ironman” picture taken after he crossed the finish line. There is no coolness in that one. He lets his absolute joy shine through. I have written a separate article about the feats of this group of triathletes on that hot August day but after seeing the pictures of Bill and his first triathlon, I had to share.

I tell first time marathoners all the time that their only goal for that first marathon is to enjoy every moment, to high-five the kids who line the course and shout “you rock” to the volunteers throughout the day. I tell them this and yet I seldom believe this joy will last from beginning to end. But Bill did it. He enjoyed every moment of that incredible day. He didn’t waste a moment wallowing in self-pity, wondering if he could do it. He just did it. He finished the race and he had fun.