Start or Finish?

It's funny how you search for what to write, for that choice moment that brings inspiration or that one experience that opens the floodgates of thought.  This week I waited . . . and waited some more.  Thought about writing about the minivan that almost hit me during my 40 miler, thought about writing on the dichotomy of the totally rested mind and the exhausted body, thought about the fact that my marathoning friends have started calling me the "crazy one." Then during an easy afternoon ride late this week it came to me: the "idea" of the finish line.

As racers we obsess about it, but what is it?  Sort of real, sort of ambiguous, sort of a time and place, sort of just a banner placed at about the right spot, and sometimes it's even our start. But when is your finish actually THE END?  Never.  Never have I crossed the finish line and thought, "I will never do that again.  I'm FINISHED!"  Before I even get to my next start I am already thinking about my next finish.  I think that maybe it is not the finish that is the important piece of this story, but rather the anticipation of the finish and how that drives us forward.  To me, my race finishes have always been a little sweet and a little sad.  The accomplishment closes one door while opening another for new and even greater opportunities.  Yes, THAT is what I will write about.  Now how to put that precisely and eloquently?

Then tonight, in an effort to locate my resume on my "almost out of memory" laptop (an exciting Friday night, but I'm a triathlete now and that's a legitimate excuse, right?), I came across a piece of writing that I haven't even thought about in the two years since I scribbled it down.  I wrote it as I was leaving the USRowing National Development Camp in Madison, WI where I trained during the summer of 2005.  This is what I wrote . . .

"I am sad to leave, but this experience will live very vibrantly in my memory for a long time to come.  This was one of those moments in my life that I took a HUGE risk, that I did something entirely on my own, something that was just for me.  Along the way I thought I had finally gotten this need to test my abilities out of my system.  But now I realize that I have only just opened the door to many new possibilities, opportunities, and challenges.  How does that quote go?  It's something like "having a goal is better that attaining one."  I think that has been an important realization of mine over the course of the summer.  I am the type of person that needs that everyday challenge of a far off goal.  And when that goal is reached, I will look even further down my path and begin again toward something even greater.  And so every end becomes a beginning, and there is never an end that is only sad, and there is never a beginning that is only sweet."

 . . . that about sums it up.

Road to the Ironman

This is my first entry in my "Road to an Iron(wo)man " journal.  The 140.6 mile race is 230 days away, as is my 27th birthday.  What will I do on my 28th birthday to top this one?  I have been training for two months.  July 4th was the first official day of my training program, as well as the first day that I jumped into the 50m pool at masters swim practice and realized that I was literally and figuratively in over my head.  Half way through the hour long practice, Johnny, the eccentric English coach, pulled me aside to give me a few tips, which started with, "Do you have some aversion to putting your face in the water?"  I thought I WAS putting my face in the water, but point taken; swimming would not be my strong leg.

I had also never been a cyclist until this July.  Granted, a friend had donated a ten year old Trek to me last April, which I promptly flew off trying to hop a curb, and earned some serious battle wounds to prove it.  But that has been my only exposure to cycling.  Even my time spent on a bike as a kid was limited.  I remember my dad building a "hydroplane" out of a 2x4 which we attached with a rope to the back of my pink bike.  I would ride through puddles and gutters and the hydroplane with lego-man driver would follow behind.  But that about covers all my biking experiences from childhood to the present.  Extensive, I know.

So . . . cycling . . . I did some research with other cyclists on the likelihood of falling while clipped in.  What I have learned is this: there are two types of cyclists.  Those that HAVE fallen and those that WILL fall.  I am still part of the "will fall" group.  And although I am feeling much more comfortable with the whole set up and being physically attached to my bike, which under some circumstances makes me feel like a human bullet, I know it will happen.  Someday I will fall and it won't even make for a good story because it will happen at a stop light when I am not even moving.  I will simply loose my balance and topple over into one big pile of bike and spandex.  Cool.

Two months into training and I can't even count how many times my ego has been bruised.  Yet I remain eager to keep trying.  Because how else do you learn but by trying, doing it wrong, feeling stupid, trying again, doing it wrong, feeling LESS stupid, etc.?  Generally, I like to do what I'm good at, and once I find something that I excel at I stick with it.  It's fun and comfortable and a good ego boost.  But now I find myself here, totally vulnerable, totally humbled, back to being a student with so much to learn that I can't even fathom all that I have YET to learn.  But how satisfying and rewarding to conquer something new -- to clip in on the first try, to cruise at 23 miles an hour, to breathe on the left side without sinking, to beat one of the boys during our 16 x 200m track workout, to run on the treadmill and know that I am not there out of obligation to my gym membership, but rather, because I have a greater purpose.  I am training to become an Ironman. 

I believe it is not only the phenomenal effort on that day that makes one an Ironman, but instead, the small battles that we fight and win everyday that we train.  As in anything, there is a bit of tearing down that must take place before the building up occurs -- in many capacities -- physical, mental, emotional.  But undoubtedly, the rebuilding always follows.  As long as we continue to push and challenge ourselves, this cycle remains endless and our capabilities limitless.

I think triathletes must walk around with a feeling that they have discovered the ultimate training secret, a secret that propels their superhuman bodies through wind and weather and over many miles.  They HAVE discovered the ultimate training secret -- and that secret is that those forces lie within all of us.