Ironman Texas 11th Week Training - As If It Were My Last Christmas

 Christmas is upon us, and training is muddling through all the interruptions.  But Christmas is important too.  I think of all of those in my life that have passed and how it would be nice to have just one more Christmas with them. Things would be different.  I would be different, I believe.  

If there is one thing that endurance sports have taught me is not to take the life for granted.  Don't take your fitness for granted. Every workout won't be great.  Appreciate it when they are, like appreciating the people you love in your life while we are here together in this life. 

When all this is over, no matter how this ironman thing fleshes out, I will still want those I love to be in close in my life.  And so, I muddle thankfully through my training and grateful for relationships and the spirit of this season.  I want to take it in deep, as if it were my last Christmas and let it resonate within me and be thankful to God for these people and these moments. 

Ironman Texas 2022 Training - 10th Week - Age 78 - Enjoying Absurd Hope

 Yesterday I turned 78.  It was a wonderful birthday in which I was treated like a fat old, spoiled king.  It was really nice.  However, it was a mountaintop, and the air is too rare to live there.   But the message of love and caring in the experience gives me more impetus to train though I am not sure why.  Yesterday I did some mountain bike riding with a brick run thrown in.  I did an hour hard indoor riding session and felt so great.  These are great times with the birthday, the holidays, and yes, the training.  

I am so blessed to have this absurd hope that at 78 I can do the training and I can finish the event.  Crazy thinking.  But at 78 there is so much less to lose.  Age related disability is chasing hard and gaining on me.  And fail or not, praise God, I can still try and have a sliver of a chance to succeed.  Happy Birthday to me.  I am truly blessed.

Ironman Texas 2022 - 10th week -

 Somehow I am surviving.  It's like the marathon I ran in cold rain once:  just keep moving forward.  You don't have to see too far forward, just keep going forward.  And of course, the biggest stumbling block on my path the Ironman Texas is that old nemesis: ME.  I am the one giving in to the temptations to slow or stop, to get turned aside.  I am the one who dreams up every excuse to avoid extreme effort.  I am the one blaming others for slowing my progress down.  I am the one.  "We have met the enemy and he is us." 

Last week was the best in total hours and workout qualitiy so far on  this journey.  For what overcoming I did to get there; thank you God.  For the good attitude that vibrates my being this morning: thank you God. 

And so, I move on. It is a slow start this morning.  Gave in to the temptation to revel in last week's sucess too long. Not it is time to get moving again into the experience of another week on the journey. 

Ironman Texas 2022 Training - Week # 9 - Age 78 - Another Attempt to Ice Skate

 Traction is hard to maintain with training as the holidays come upon us. Another holiday in the middle of all this - if you want to call it a holiday - is my birthday.  I will be 78.  As I train, I try not to think about being 78.  It scares me.  78 is too old to be training for and attempting an event of this length and difficulty.  The head-in-the-sand approach has been used with some success in avoiding  scaring myself off this ironman thing entirely. Ignore it and maybe it will go away.  , It's all I got.

There have been times I sucked it  up and  really faced this age thing. and look at it for what it really is.  It is always the same;  it is crazy to do this at this age.  Then, I just want to slack back and do sprints and such and age gracefully. 

However, I have never been all that graceful in much of anything I have ever done.  No reason to think I could age gracefully.  I tried to ice skate once and fell so often and cut myself up with the blades in doing so, that I bled all over the ice.  The owner/manager asked me to please leave.  

Is trying to grow old gracefully another  attempt to ice skate? 

Ok, enough of reality.  I don't want to talk about it any more.  Like a line from a song from somewhere, "when it's scary, don't look down."  The only time I should look down in going for this ironman insanity, is when I go to put my head back in the sand.

Ironman Texas Week # 8 - Thanksgiving

 There seems to be a pull toward nothingness in my training.  Yes, I am well aware that I live  in a motivational wasteland for things like endurance sports, but I have always seemed to do the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" thing, and find enough inside to keep moving, eventually.  Eventually, is what I am hoping for.   I have read ironman stuff, seen motivation Ironman videos with all the rah-rah, and still nothing.  I am passing through a dead zone in my ironman quest.  What is surprising though is that when I do train, I find I am really doing well at it.  Strange things, we humans are.  

Perhaps with two months of this under my belt, it is God's way of making me relax and let it happen, stress less and enjoy this journey.  There may never be another for me at age 78.  

This week is Thanksgiving and I have so much be thankful for.  May I indeed relax, praise God for all He has made of me, and all He has done for me.

Ironman Texas Week #7- Pulse Quickeners

 The weeks are passing so quickly.  There has been a rhythm regained that I am so happy about.  This ironman training journey is yet again, a journey of self-discovery.  We booked hotel reservations today.  The race is sold out and though the even is six months off, my pulse quickens.  I am so blessed to have pulse quickeners in my life. So blessed to have something so important.  And I wonder does everyone have their pulse quickeners?  Or, am I among the blessed?  

Regardless, I am happy tonight with my training and happy with myself.  Tonight is a good place but I am sure that something is out there seeing all this and planning a train wreck for me.  

Maybe so but my cup runneth over tonight and no matter what happens I know I have been blessed.

Ironman Texas 2022 - Week # 6 - Determined

 I have determined to be more determined in my pursuit of Ironman Texas.  There are too many miles behind me to fear and dread the miles ahead of me.   The pandemic restrictions have sapped some spirit that I want back.  It is either quit this altogether or put myself altogether in it.  No more of the half-hearted, well maybe stuff.  

I made that  determination was made but first thing Monday morning the devil came after me.  It  was a wetsuit swim in a pool that they keep at 70 degrees.  This was my first wetsuit swim in a while and the first laps right away felt uncomfortable in the wetsuit.  My face and neck were getting cold. I was alone in the pool so I was just swimming round and round, simulating an open water swim. This is stupid, I thought.  The whole ironman thing is stupid.  Let's get out of this stupid wetsuit and go home where I can do something more meaningful, like watching the television or chatting on Facebook. 

Right.  That would be stupid waste of the gift of health and opportunity that God has provided.  "Not everyone has a chance to live like this." And, many that do, don't and won't.  And at my age, I often think about how I want to leave things.  My mission statement says, " I want to leave a legacy others will feel lead to emulate and God will be proud of."  So again I determined not to live like those that don't and won't and live like one who can and will try. I determined again to be  one out to leave such that legacy "others will feel lead to emulate and God will be proud of.  

I pushed on through the doldrums of can't until things began to more more smoothly and relaxed.  It turned out to be  a great swim. Something happened on that swim.  I determined to renew my commitment and live bravely again, hang the risk and the cost.