Ironman Texas 2024 - Becoming Their Own Heroes

   Ironman Texas will happen in the morning.  All these brave souls will face into the sunrise, look off into the water, take a deep breath, and begin a long hard day.  Just to get to one of these starting lines is no Sunday stroll. Most are motivated people with lots going on in their lives.  They had sacrificed things, tried to balance the roles, and still get in the training.  Many will wonder if they did enough to get through what they are about to enter into.  They are facing their fears to live their dreams. 

No doubt, this is going to be a collection of some of the best people our species can assemble in one place.  They have got up and raised their expectations for themselves above what most expect of themselves.  They are becoming their own heroes and with good reason. Who wouldn't want to be counted as among these brave souls? I know I do.  God bless them all tomorrow.

Sustainable Joy

 There is no sense pretending.  Trying to run or ride from being yourself is not sustainable for long without negatively impacting the quality of life.  

 I believe that about sustainable joy:  "Be the same person all the time."  Sounds simplistic.   And I guess it is, but, to me, it defines a form of self-respect that encourages you to be who you are, not an actor to please the relational environment.   Being an actor is stressful.  A term once used for actors was "hypocrite."  Not being a hypocrite, not playing a role to please others, but being yourself, fosters an authenticity and integrity which is bedrock for any chance of sustainable joy.  

"Ah, there's the rub."  This requires real courage.  It can be so easy to fall into a camouflaged lifestyle.  It can be so easy to follow the herd.  And, it can be so hard to remain true to ourselves, when all around you say, "Change, fit in, don't make waves.".  To fit into this waveless world  we let the slow steady hum of normalism define  who you should be and what you should be doing.  Fighting the gravity of the deep rut requires courage.  

It is a great temptation to take the safe, easy, and comfortable path rather than trod the hard path to stand against the storm of convention.  But, you can't make memories to smile about later from the things you didn't do because you subscribed  and consented to playing a role to fit in.  For me at least, good memories and impossible dreams are the wheels that drive to achieving sustainable joy.  

There is a quote from "Self -Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson,   "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."   

And that "great accomplishment" can bring  sustainable joy. 

Thanks God.

Training in the Dark

 

By now I see that I won't ever stop training.  Life events have taken most of the opportunities to compete but I seem to get up and go after training each day like there was a good reason for it.  I am training almost with the same purpose and intent as when I trained for events.  And I wonder: what is wrong with me?  

Perhaps there is a part of me that won't give up completely.  Maybe the training is the holdout in the process of complete surrender, and I just don't want to go there.  

And perhaps training has become so much of who I am that I can't give it up if I want to.  Perhaps it is my tattoo that I won't have removed no matter what.  Maybe age and circumstance have taken all except this, but I think I have drawn my line in the sand on training  Till death do us part, so to speak.  

At the same time, when I finish my workouts and feel proud and grateful to God for this ability, I am still saddened somewhat that I can't take the results of my training anywhere anymore.  Its strange but training makes me glad and it makes me sad, at the same time. No matter.  My gratitude outweighs my sadness.  And, I thank God for all the events and training I have done in the past and ask Him for more health and opportunity to train in the dark. 

Light My Fire

 One match, lit and placed on a piece of tissue paper - small flame, almost flickered out, caught on a little, flickered in doubt a moment, and grew.  And I thought how small a start and this little flame will build upon itself, and eventually ignite this huge pile of brush I want to burn down. And it did.  

We are no different.  Sometimes we find ourselves little more than soft, fluffy tissue paper. What we need is one small, simple, flame to ignite the fire within us into a roaring fire.   This is the benefit of community within a passion.  We all have our soft, fluffy moments when passion and commitment are at low ebb. We all need someone to strike a match for us to ignite the fires in our lives, to become more of what we are capable of, rather than what we have degraded to. 

So, shouldn't I be inclined to give what I want to receive from another member of this endurance sports community?  We can do this. Light my fire.  I'll light yours. Let's "run the race that is set before us."

To Die as an Athlete

 Yes, I am old by most standards.  The call is to stay down.  Life can really beat you up at this age.  Hide out, take your meds, and take it easy.  Live out your life quietly. But I don't take any meds.  Am I going to have to get sick and go to the doctor and get on meds to be normal for my age?  How else can I live a camouflaged old person's life?   Isn't this the American dream: to work all your life to build a comfort nest in which to have nothing important to be or do and rest yourself to death? 

I am an old athlete.  It is not important but it is what I do and who I am.  God led me to this and I haven't heard Him holler, "Quit, stay down, too old."  I still feel like an athlete.  given my choice I want to die like an athlete as an athlete.  

I guess I will never grow up.  I still love the labored breathing of a hard effort, the sweat dripping off my forehead, the euphoric feeling moments after you have done your best. God willing, I can continue to do this until I die, - as an athlete.

Get Up and Be

 Done a lot of doubting lately.  Worst of all is that I start doubting myself, whether I have it anymore to pick myself up and face again, the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."  I would imagine it was that same heartbreak that Lee suffered when he surrendered, or Santa Anna had to surrender to Sam Houston. Short version:  surrender is a heartbreaker. 

What about those who didn't surrender in the face of overwhelming odds?  The men at the Alamo didn't surrender and died deaths true to their school.  They "died with their boots on" so to speak even if their boots may be stolen after they were dead.  And they were all dead, literally a dead end. 

The Texan at Goliad were a lot smarter.  They saw how fruitless and futile it would be to try on so they surrendered.  They were killed anyway. Surrender was a dead end too. I have often wondered if those poor Texas as they lined up to die, wished they would have fought on even to death 

 So do I do an Alamo or Goliad?  In those last moments the result will be the same.  But until then, life won't be the same and  those last moments which inevitably come, it won't be the same.  Knowing who I am, I realize I won't be the same either.  

Today, I hear the call that I surrender to age and circumstance, to give up triathlon and serious training.   Today, this moment,  I will answer with a cannon shot from my walls.  Today, this moment, I want to make life climb the wall and come and try to take me.  

Proud words.  Now to get up from this table and fight the good fight. 

Finding Oneself in the Garden

 For years I had a garden.  Every year was a process of pulling up all the old plants, taking out the weeds, tearing up the soil, and row up to plant new seeds for the new crop.  I have found that life is a lot like that. Sometimes the old and bug-eaten variety of ourselves is not bearing fruit and the only rescue is to pull up the old and plow for change in the new.  

I tested positive for COVID-19 again today.  This is 10 days, now.  I feel good but it's not enough.     

What about my quest? What about the half-ironman?  What about serious training?  I don't like going through this, can you tell?  I haven't had a cold in 25 years and this hasn't even had the symptoms of a mediocre cold.  I am so blessed to have it this easy but I can still search diligently and find a reason to complain, I guess.  Yeah, I am so human.  

My self wants to complain. My faith says "All things work together for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose."  Romans 8:28.  God seems to intimate to me that like the torn-up old garden being replanted for spring, something will grow from what you are going through, and it will be you.