one more Hugh related note...

For some reason I was digging through my archives this morning and read a post that was a response to a question my friend Chris asked... it directly ties into what Hugh was mentioning...

Chris wrote...

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 wrote a long and lengthy response, but I finished with this quote from Mike Plant's Iron Will. Reading it today, I thought it really summed up what triathletes see in the sport.


"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."