It's been quite a while since I've posted. Maybe I haven't posted out of a bit of shame. Maybe I've just been lazy. Maybe I haven't posted because of life changes. Whatever reason I have probably isn't a good one, but it's all I have. I was walking through the bathroom of my apartment tonight looking at some bike clothes strewn about the floor thinking that it's been a year and a half since Ironman Wisconsin 2002 and that it's all sort of been downhill from that moment. I don't know that I've ridden more than a couple of hundred miles since September of 2002 and I'm just starting to pick up the pieces. They're depressing pieces. Pieces that are even more depressing when you exacerbate them with elevation here in Colorado where I'm now living. Think it's hard to bike a long distance when you're out of shape? Try biking that same distance while you're out of shape and can't breathe.
It surprises me that I still weigh roughly the same as I did when all of my training went out the window. Should I feel blessed about that? Or should I be ashamed that it's probably just a redistribution of fat and muscle. What can I do to change? Is there hope? Surely there's hope, for if there wasn't, there would be no reason to restart the blog.
What's changed aside from being a new resident of 'The Centennial State'? Probably the biggest change is just that I've gotten married to quite a lovely lady. Everything that you're told about marriage, or at least what I've been told about marriage is wrong. I'm sure there's a part of me, just like there's a part of every evangelical male that gets married for the sex. If you can't have it, you want it... and you go for it the way you know you're allowed to get it. Getting married. Upon getting married, you realize that sex is much less sexy than how it's portrayed in the culture around you. It's not bad. In fact, it's really quite good, but dealing with perceptions and then reorienting and rewriting them to reflect a newly perceived reality is definitely a process. A good chunk of married life seems to be a bit like that. It's not quite as sexy as it's portrayed, but it's also much richer.
But what does all of this have to do with Triathlon? It has to do with triathlon because it changes you. Marriage made me very aware of the attention I was giving to my wife. That I felt obligated to be able to give her my attention when I wasn't at work. I haven't felt (now that it's spring again) that I can leave and go for a group ride once or twice a week. I haven't found the balance between showering attention on my bride, and chasing after another one of my goals.
On Chasing Goals...
I'm also dealing with just what it is I want to accomplish. Do I want to excel at the job I feel God called me into? Do I want to start up this sideproject design company so that my wife and I can stop donating plasma and pay the back taxes that I still owe from my days of freelancing? Life is a balancing act and one that I'm still struggling to walk. But God is a God of grace, and though I know I keep falling off the tightrope, that safety net is there and I can get up and try to walk across again.
More later, but I needed to post something while the muse was in the room.
-Bri
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