Do You Feel Like I Do?

Do you feel....like I do? Do you feel.... like I do? Do You Feel Like We Do - Peter Frampton

Way, way back in 1976, Frampton Comes Alive was released. I was a junior in high school and "Do You Feel Like We Do" was the hit single off the album. The first 2 short verses of the song were kind of irrelevant to the jazz like extended jam. In the later part of the song, Peter Frampton first hushes the live audience, then brings it to a cheering frenzy with his call and response of "Do You Feel Like We Do?" during an extended "talkbox" solo, an effects pedal which redirects a guitar's sound through a tube into the performer's mouth, allowing the guitar to mimic human speech. It was a marathon of a song, clocking in at about 14 minutes. Not what you would consider radio friendly. Thus, for the first month or so of the album's release, you would listen to this cool, jazzy song on your home stereo and really enjoy this extended jam. People heard about it through word of mouth and the album became a huge seller.

Unfortunately, the song and album got so popular that pop radio couldn't leave it alone. Soon you couldn't drive in your car with the radio on without the song coming up in quick rotation. Like many popular things in our culture, the more popular something becomes, the quicker commercial interests will force it down our throats so often that we want to throw up. Too much of a good thing. What had been cool and cutting edge very quickly became hackneyed and uncool through overexposure. "Do You Feel Like We Do" became the poster child for this phenomena. "Do You Feel Like We Do" would come on the radio and my automatic response was to change the station. Fast! I'd come to resent a song I used to love. To this day, my conditioned response to this song is revulsion.

Other than showing how F-ing old I am, why do I bring this up? Because at some point in training for a full ironman event, the sheer volumn of training starts to wear on you. While you have to enjoy training to do a half or full ironman, at some point the long swim, long bike ride, and long run start getting old. I've noticed this phenomena in other triathlon bloggers. Luckily, the sense of "this shit is getting old" seems to kick in just before taper time. It may be the body's and mind's way of telling you that its OK to cut back. It may be the mind's way of letting you know that you'll want to rest up a bit before the big event. Either that or the mind simply gets tired of routine.

These thoughts entered my mind last evening while doing an hour pool swim solo. If you've read my prior blog entries, you probably know that I prefer open water swimming to pool swims. The up and back of a pool just gets monotonous for me. I like seeing the shore go by on a long swim. It makes me feel like I'm making progress. I guess I'd say the same thing about running and biking. I'll use a treadmill to run if its just too hot or too wet to run outside. I simply can not get myself to ride on a trainer. I tried it for a while, but just can't bring myself to use one. My mind needs the changing scenery to keep it interesting.

In any event, I have no doubt that I'll get through these last couple of weeks of long training before tapering down to race day. I also know that after some time off post event, I will come to love the training again. In fact, I somehow have "Do You Feel Like We Do" on my iPod. I play my music in random play mode to keep things interesting. This morning, "Do You Feel Like We Do" cued up on the iPod. I almost hit the skip button on my car music system, but resisted the automatic urge to not listen to this song. After 33 years of not listening to this song, it actually sounded pretty good again. Hopefully, it will not take that long to get back into training after Arizona.

So, I must ask in closing, do you feel like I do?