Embers of Hope

With so much practice I should be good at this by now.  It should be easier but it isn't.  I suppose that if it were easy to quit, there wouldn't  have been the requisite passion to begin the quest.   Last week I dropped out of Ironman Texas 2018 - again. Again, my bum knee couldn't stand the piled on training of the last few months of Ironman preparation.  Sometimes I just get tired of all this; tired of hoping the knee holds, and then it doesn't.  And I wonder:   Will I ever get tired of being disappointed by all this and just quit this silliness and do something different? 

This time was different.   I could never get the motivation for those long runs and rides going.  It was almost as if I knew that I wasn't going to make it.  But, when it happened it was a big shot of disappointment nonetheless.  So much so that I didn't train at all for over a week.  I have never done that.

But, I did do physical stuff around the place here, like working up large chunks of firewood.  And in throwing some of these chunks short distances, I pulled my back.  Now, it is painful to walk.  Yeah, I guess I am in a hole about now. The event schedule came out for Ironman Texas yesterday, and not only am  I not in the event, but I have trouble walking.   Where does one go from here?

In this hole I find myself in, I can only look up and pray for a strength, courage, endurance, and commitment greater than my own. 

My own is obviously not enough, but I am 74 years old and how many other holes - some worse than this - have I found myself in and somehow got out of?  I love the quote: "Difficulties give birth to miracles," and there have been many miracles in my life. Indeed, there could be more to come along this wonderful journey of hills and valleys. 

Down there in the ashes of my fire that once burned big and bright, lay embers of hope yet unfulfilled.  My place at Ironman Texas was not withdrawn but only deferred.  Will I capitalize on that deferment:  probably.  Success or failure I probably won't pass up the opportunity for another miracle.