First Long Taper Ramble

I shouldn't physically feel like I'm tapering, considering I put in 20 hours last week (less than I had wanted to, though), but mentally, I know I'm only 2 weeks out from IMLP, and I will bottom out on biking this week as well as running (I get to swim as much as I want, though!).

I've committed to NOT registering for an actual Ironman race for 2010, and I will need help at IMLP to keep me away from the pre-registration line. I've been saying for several years that "this is my last year of Ironman," but nobody ever believes me. I never thought I'd be sitting here about to do my THIRTEENTH one! OK, so 2 of those were self-supported, but they are still in my count.

Ironman and loss have defined the last 10 years of my life. I started running in 1998, which was 4 years post-divorce. Some opinions say it takes 3-5 years to iron yourself out after a divorce (and I lost my job at the same time), so I suppose it was almost natural for me to seek out something new in my life. 2 years later, I found myself training for my first triathlon, which escalated to signing up for my first Ironman.

Choosing to do Ironman automatically creates loss in your life. If you want to be good at it, it requires you to toss out pieces of your life, and that culling process can be stressful. Oh, so you were used to a perfectly clean house? Fuhgeddabout it. You enjoy spending an hour or so every evening fixing yourself a nice meal? Fuck that, you won't have time. Love gardening? Your yard is going to go to your version of Hell. Like staying up late and drinking and dancing? You won't be able to do much of that, either.

What about friendships? Choosing to do Ironman forces you to cull those who will not support you, who will not understand the journey you've undertaken. In my case, I didn't have but a few close friends when I started, was fortunate enough to keep one until now, made some new ones and tossed a few of them, too. The people I want around me now are those who really get how the only way I've found to both get inside myself and get out of myself is by doing this crazy amount of exercise. And I'm not even on the extreme edge! What's great is that I now have met plenty of people way crazier than me! So now whenever someone tells me they think I'm crazy, I have examples that prove that I'm really quite tame by some standards.

Back to the subject at hand--Ironman and loss. When you are doing an Ironman, even much of the time while you are training, you need to lose yourself. Or at least that is how it feels to me. When I'm out there riding 100 miles by myself or running for several hours, and it's not something I have to do, but yet I do it, and I am not thinking of all the other things I could be doing--in fact, I can't think of much but what I am doing right at that minute.

And that, in a nutshell, is what has kept me coming back for more and more of this. I want to keep losing myself until I figure out how to lose myself some other way! Maybe I won't find another way, but I have this sneaking suspicion that something will find me and show me another way in a few years.

In the meantime, Ironman is not going to be enough. Even as I will start to assemble my things for IMLP (I leave a week from Wednesday), I am already thinking about Revenge of the PirateMan in August, the 50-mile run in October and things I want to do in 2010. I will be doing Goofy Challenge again, but thankfully I don't need to even think about that because I already know I know how to do it!

And there may be an Ultraman in my schedule for next year. Isn't it funny that I am doing all this forward planning when I haven't even done one Ironman this year? That is the charm of all of this. I am looking forward to being even more lost!

Aside from the losses I've experienced willingly in the last 10 years, there have, of course, been the other real losses--my Mom and Dad, and I also need to say my youth. While my body is in pretty good physical shape (maybe better than ever), I am needing to adapt to how I now look which is no fun. Aging sucks! But still, I'll make the best of it, but I do need to be respectful. Although I do hate it when someone my age or older points out all of their issues and says something like, "Just wait until this happens to you!" Hey--I know I'm not immune to everything, but as long as I can keep this up, I will!

And then there have been the loss of romances, which sucks the most--next to death, those are always the hardest things for me to process. I'm still working on one! I suppose part of it comes from my belief that if you work hard enough at anything that it can be yours, but that is not how relationships work, unless of course, both parties want to do the work.

I lost my "old" house, too, in that I remodeled a lot of it. That was a good loss!

What I lost most recently, though, is my idea that Ironman is the big challenge. I want to do more, now, and if this old body holds together, I am going to prove it to myself. This in no way diminishes what anyone else does--I happily support anyone's efforts to do any amount of exercise and self-care, because I want people to feel great. It is just that for me, I need another test, and next year will be the year of other new tests. Hey, if I can lose myself for a day, maybe I can lose myself for a few days running! Better than any drug I know of!