20th Week - Training for Ironman Texas 2020 - NEW YEAR

Happy New Year tonight finds me with a new supply of resolve for doing this ironman.  It is not certain whether I have ever felt this forward at this time on my other ironman training attempts which all ended in failure. Today I finished my training plan and it really looks scary.  But this time it seems I am more in a "bring it on" mode than ever before when confronted with the enormity of this task.  Last week I had some rocky spots but came through with my resolve intact.  Praise God for that.

Adding up the years training totals, it wasn't a bad year overall. There were some setbacks early but my consistency has been good and I think that is quite important in this kind of challenge. Something is different.  It seems I am more into God and God is more into me at this time.  Whatever I need to do to hold that position, I need to do that.

So as 2019 fades, 2020 begins, I look at all the hard training to come and my heart quickens with fear and my lips smile at the challenge and my heart thanks God for this life and this opportunity.

19th Week - Training for Ironman Texas 2020 - Focus Practice

Last week had to be pulled out of the fire.  So many outside issues with Christmas coming up and the home repairs required put a crimp in my getting training in.   However, on a physical level, I seem to be holding up well. In fact, I think my running has greatly improved and my bike endurance is there on rides around 30-40 miles.  So I feel good about that but this training is about to go deeper and I am not sure my fragile support system will allow an increased effort to survive.   But here we go, all prayed up and psyched up, to "lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us and run the race set before me looking to God the author and finisher of my faith"  If I can't do that, I won't make it. If I can I will have at least a chance of making it on race day.  So, if nothing else comes of this it will be some focus practice and some laying aside workouts.

Week 18 - Training for Ironman Texas 2020 - Lacing Up

So fragile is life. Our plans, hopes, and dreams can get derailed in a moment.  In my opinion, we all know that, but the fragile nature of plans and life is not fully taken in until it lands in your lap. That is why training long term like for an ironman can be such a tenuous enterprise.  All the work and planning can just go up in smoke seemingly in a moment.  Then all the effort comes to naught.  Or does it?

Perhaps the fragility of it all, and the overcoming that has to be done just to get the training in, is part of the ironman experience itself.  Of the people who line up, who doesn't have an overcoming story of some sort in getting there?

I had a fair week of training, but mentally I seem to be on the ropes getting the stuffing beat out of me at the time.  They say just keep putting one foot ahead of the other and keep moving forward.  But so much has come against me that my feet seem to be rebelling and don't want to move.  Why?  My feet seem to say.  And there it is, the ironman question we must all answer for ourselves.  As for me, I got myself all prayed up and I'm lacing up my shoes for a run.

Week 17 - Training for Ironman Texas 2020 - Blessed

Last week was OK; not great, not stinko, but a good plodding forward OK.  In plodding forward it is pretty quiet.  There are no cheering sections on my roads when I run or alongside my bike as I pedal.  In fact, my ironman journey is not a subject of conversation at all among family and friends, that is, except my number one fan:  my wife.  Most of the time I don't even take notice that my cheering section is quite silent or the absence of motivation or inspiration from other people.  I have grown accustomed to it as I would bet, they have grown accustomed over the year to my training for an ironman.  Understandably I can see how ironman has lost its value as a conversational piece.  ( The striving and failing at Ironman so many times will be in my book - A Day Unlike Any Other Day - coming out soon.)

And too, at my age, the people I used to be involved in athletic pursuits with have grown too old, become disabled, or died.  These people were not replaced and that was my choice.  It was my choice to live and train in by myself in a non-athletic environment.  Most people I know and am associated with have only a vague notion of what an ironman is.  Perhaps they have generally assumed that I have a mental problem but I am not dangerous so I can be tolerated well.

So my reflection - as I enter the 18th week of my training - is a realization of how alone I am in all this except for my wife and God.  My how things have changed; how I have changed; how motives, goals, and purposes have evolved. Growing older does have its advantages; there is so much you can leave behind that you once thought vital. And I find that at the end of the day what remains is love:  the love of my wife as she totally loves and supports me in this with genuine heartfelt cheers and inspiration.  I am blessed.  And undergirding this entire effort and every step in the journey is God; the "wind beneath my wings." His love and support are genuine, total, and sustaining.  I am blessed.