Confessions Of A Flabby Ironman

Sunday, June 23 >From: Chris Parks >Quoth Brian > > I'm beginning to think though, that I could really excell at the > >Ironman. based on today's performance, if my bike works > >properly, I should be able to get a really decent split in teh bike > >portion of the race, and hopefully by doing this longer mile stuff, > >I'll still have legs by the time I need to run the marathon. > >Can the lure of the triathalon be explained to the non-initiate? 30 >years ago i would have taken you for a really old-school Catholic >looking for a lot of pain to "offer up." :-) I think there are several reasons why I want to do "it"... and I think I need to make that part of today's journal entry. Training wise, I'm heading out for a run in a few minutes. i was stuck working at a conference all day so I didn't get a chance to run any earlier than this. When I first read that they were going to be introducing a Wisconsin leg of the Ironman season, there was something in the back of my mind that said... Hmmm, that would actually be really interesting to try. I had just started doing long distance cycling stuff, and it was another chance to "Do a century". I think though, that it's turned into more than that. In his book, Iron Will, author Mike Plant talks about how the Ironman is one of the most life changing things an athlete can do. When one finishes the race, suddenly things are different. You have to push yourself so hard that you really find out what you're capable of. It takes so much concentration and force of will to keep going... even if you're just trying to finish in 17 hours. I really like what this woman named Elizabeth Johnson said in another Ironman book that I read called "Becoming an Ironman", "One of the things an athlete must do before attempting an ironman is to strengthen the body core. This won't take a membership to a gym. You can't get it in the weight room. I'm talking body core. You've got to get right with God because you're going to pray out there." Coming at it from that standpoint, there is a sense that the Ironman is a spiritual exercise... and to me, I really do consider that a big part of it. Not just race day itself, but the focus and drive that it takes to force yourself out to train on days thhat you might just not feel like you have what it takes or when there might be something more fun that you could do instead. I'm also doing it because there aren't any other sports that I've really been any good at. I don't think I'll ever be an amazing triathlete, but there's a sense of accomplishment that I've found in longdistance cycling and I think I'll find in triathlon that I've never experienced in any other athletic endeavors. I'm a fat guy (or at least a big guy... last time I checked I still weighed in around 225) the one thing I have that some other people might not, are big lungs. I can generally keep going. As I rode the double century yesterday, I could have kept going, and in a difference scenario where the bike hadn't broken down, or I hadn't had to go through miles of mud, I could have, but somehow or another I got demoralized through both of those instances. I want to push through that so that i can tell myself "You can do that!" "You, a kind of pudgy guy can go for a 140 miles" I want to be in shape... another reason. A lot of times, i can't do something unless I have some sort of goal. The ironman, seems to be one of those penultimate goals. i can't get my money back, and it's like $400 to do the darn thing, so I HAVE to get in shape so that I can get the t-shirt and medal. If I paid $400 for it, I want the whole experience, which means that I need to work for it ahead of time, which means I have a chance of actually getting into shape. I don't have a completely horrible body image problem. I like how I look for the most part, but I'd like to take off my gut, and trainign for the Ironman helps in that secondary quest. so those are a couple of reasons. If you want some more, I can write them up with additional thought. In closing, I leave you with what Mike Plant finished with in his introduction to Iron Will "From the outside, it is easy to see the Ironman as an exercise in self-indulgent fanaticism. Frankly, considering the kind of dedication required of the triathletes who compete, it IS self-indulgent. And I suppose that swimming, cycling and running 140 miles in a single day could easily be considered fanatical. but it's not as simple as that. As I discovered in 1982, the race is more than just photographs and anecdotes. it's more than raw miles and times on a watch, and even more than wonderful athletes like Dave Scott and Scott Tinley pushing themselves beyond conventional limits of physical performance. The Ironman, in fact is about people who become heroes. it's about an impossible task proved to be possible year after year. it's about athletes, the fast ones and the slow ones alike, stripped of everything but the simple desire to take one step farther than they theymselves believe is possible. That they do this voluntarily, some of them on an annual basis, might sound crazy, but noble is what it really is. I guess that's what I like best about the Ironman: the nobility of the effort. I hope some of that comes across in this book. Hell, it's what this book is all about." More later, Brian