The Difference
October 27th, 2005: this is Lactic Acid Man, MFT after missing the 2000m rowing standard by five seconds, poisoned, and basically immobilized for the next few hours.
This is an old piece, from mid-2012 and my old project. When I came across it the other day I thought it was entertaining because we speak so much about language and whether the words we choose accurately communicate what we intend to transmit. When I consider the difference between "hurting" and "suffering" in the context of effort these days, I would use different words because my experience with these concepts is not the same as it was nine years ago. Both Michael and I have grown, become different men, and our relationship to effort of any intensity has changed as well. Regardless, this is a fun look back to an era that allowed us to be who and where we are right now.
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The difference is a big one, and at times definitive.
We often say that some athletes know how to hurt while others know how to suffer. It comes up as we learn about our clients, as we decipher temperament in the quest to better understand and train a person, and often as we learn more about ourselves. In this context we use the term hurt to describe the outcome of a savagely hard but relatively short effort and the term suffer to describe what happens during and after a less intense, but far longer lasting effort.
The idea surfaced again yesterday when, after we retuned to Sofia, someone suggested to Jamie that, "since you did one of his bike rides I think it only fair that he owes you a 2000m Row for time." Jamie kindly took a neutral position, "you'll have to discuss that with him. I'm staying out of it." While a few arrogant cells in my brain thought, "fuck it, I might just give it another try, especially if I can't ride as much as I would like to while I am here in Bulgaria." The fantasy didn't last once I recalled the last time I rowed 2000m for time, October 27th, 2005.
After a couple of months of training I convinced myself I could go under the standard, which is 7:00. Of course, all started well, confidence soared for 1000m and the decline began. My legs and lungs started offering negative feedback that my mind could not suppress or interpret or re-characterize or turn into anger. I watched that goddamned Projected Finish figure hit 6:59, and climb above 7:00, then 7:01 and it kept going. I did too. And I fought it hard but I missed the standard by five seconds. The immediate psychological consequence was minor compared to how I felt physically for the next several hours — disappointment was nothing next to feeling like I might have poisoned myself to near-death with acidity.
I vowed that I would never do that again. I probably won't either. I've nothing to prove and no one can shame or trick me into it.
While I was watching the Prologue of the Tour de France yesterday evening I marveled at the type of effort required by it. The top guys were finishing in around 7:20, which is astonishingly fast for the distance (6.4km), and leaving everything on the road. Some guys are better at that duration than others, and the ones who drifted out the back, losing 30 seconds or more are suited to longer, lower intensity efforts, big climbs, or perhaps have tuned their engines to put out maximum horsepower in 10-20 second bursts.
Close to maximum effort for 6-8 minutes is a very, very difficult level of intensity. Sporting equivalents to rowing 2000m, which might take from 5:20 to 6:30 at an international level depending on boat and environmental conditions, could be running 3000m (current WR is 7:20 or thereabouts) or 5000m speed skating (current WR is 6:03) or the 800m freestyle (current WR is 7:32). These events all require a strong endurance component (75% [+/-] of energy contribution to a rowing 2000m is aerobic, while the 3000m run requires 80-85%). These durations are short enough to allow the athlete to operate at near-VO2 Max levels of intensity. In fact, it is accepted that VO2 Max effort can be sustained for 8-10 minutes. The outcome of longer events is determined by who can sustain the highest percentage of VO2 Max for the duration of the event. In any case, 7-10 minutes of near-maximal effort is hard and destructive and not all physical or psychological profiles adapt well to it.
On the other hand, much longer, lower intensity efforts have their own particular difficulties, the least important of which is probably the (unique) energy system required. I'll use a consensus figure of 98% aerobic/ 2% anaerobic ratio to describe the energy system required by longer events. The physical difficulty of 4-24 hour-long events cannot be accurately compared to the 6-8 minute-long events listed above. When we go from minutes to hours of continuous output the difficulties shift from physiologic to psychological, from intensity and aggression to economy and calculation, and from self-destruction to self-preservation. To be sure, an Ironman is physically hard, going 24 hours non-stop in the mountains is physically hard, but not because one is operating at near-maximal physical effort.
The differentiation between what we call hurting and what we call suffering is time, is intensity, is psychology and temperament. To go all-out for one minute or 500m on a Rowing ERG takes a special willingness - you really have to WANT it. You must be willing to accept the consequences you know full well are coming. On the other side of the hurt/suffer coin, to go as hard as you can for three hours, for 6-10 hours, to be smart enough to know what is too hard and to have the discipline to accelerate when you are not going hard enough, this too takes a special willingness - you have to want it and to keep on wanting it.
It's not better. It's not worse. It's just different. And the will required to make oneself go to the edge and either dive off or ride it until it leaves a deep scar is what makes us who we are … also different.
