I Know That

 

Am I in an ironman rut?  I keep signing up.  It seems I am incurable of this ironman addiction.  What can I say?  Moving on would be a good option.  Why not? Hasn't there been enough time, energy, and resources expended on this ironman stuff?  

Despite all that, I find myself still in the ironman game; theoretically at least.  Recently I deferred Ironman Texas to Ironman Texas 2022. Of course, I will be too old then.  I'm too old now.  I have too old for ironman for a few years now.  Old guys like me trying to do an ironman are an anomaly, not having the self-respect not to go out and make a fool of oneself trying to outlive your time.  Just an old fool trying vainly, desperately, and pathetically to hang on to the shreds of athletic life.  I know all that.  But I trudge on unsure now that I have the drive to complete all the training, unsure my wife, who is older than I, will have the health to support me in yet another Ironman quest.   But yet, I keep going on, acting out the senility that comes with this age, I suppose. Like a robot, I just numbly keep signing up as if I were some robust thirty-year-old with all the energy and rah-rah necessary for this beast of a quest.

Maybe too,  my malady is an indication of an personal life vitamin deficiency, an indication of an incompleteness; a life that needs an ironman future to give purpose and fulfillment to it?   I don't know.  We all need a reason to get out of bed and go at whatever makes us purposeful and come alive, don't we? But,if that is true wouldn't you think that  I have  about used this ironman purpose thing up?  I don't know.   

Do I really want to go at it again with all that goes with that?  Do I want the dead-legged feeling in my life for a few months next year?  I don't know.  Do I want that brain-dead foggy mental feeling that comes from the long training?  Is the price too high for me this late in my game?  Can't I find, and be satisfied with some other purpose, some other  reason to get out of bed and have a go at life; something besides Ironman?  I don't know.

If things remain the same in family and personal matters, I could conceivably do the ironman training.  If things go really, really well, I might have a chance to finish.  If I finish it would be seriously been  a crowning achievement in my life.  And if others note that achievement, see my faith, my perseverance, they might become inspired to assume the risk and try to become all God intended them to be ; whatever that might me.   It's not impossible.  I know that.