why do an ironman

August 21, 2014

The Real Reason I'm Doing Ironman Louisville #IMLOU

Technically there are still 3 days left before Ironman Louisville. I’ve been counting down, but keep forgetting to add the hours, and occasionally, like now when it says 23, that number is substantial. Hope I haven’t been freaking you out by leaving out a day.

Then again, many scientists argue that time is an illusion. Which makes me wonder, if there is technically no countdown clock, what is the real reason we’re racing Ironman?

Slowly, I think I am figuring that out.

Last year I was racing for many of the “wrong” reasons. Namely, I was trying to impress everyone, except myself.

I launched like a rocket at the moon, but when I got there, I didn’t have a plan. I celebrated for days before realizing, all that drive and energy was burned seeking a symbol. A time, a conquest, a medal.

I wanted to be an Ironman.

But then, I was an Ironman, and, that alone didn’t open my world to happiness and satisfaction. I’d forgotten the real reason I signed up in the first place: to break up the plaque forming in my veins.

I wasn’t going to do another Ironman this year. I didn’t see the point in all the suffering. I suppose, that is proof that I was learning.

But I kept working out on my terms and started to find joy in the training. It was no longer “workout until I can’t move,” but exercise to unleash more energy.

Eventually, I registered for Louisville, but it still wasn’t for the right reason. The “glitz” is what ultimately drew me in. I wanted to be a part of the parade. I wanted to matter.

Now, just under 3 days from the shot of the cannon, I am looking at racing from a completely different perspective. I have accepted that I am simply excited to test my mind and body.

Ironman is one day and simply another in a long list of life’s deadlines. It’s a test to see if we can finish what we’ve started. A metaphor for all of those projects and dreams we want to complete. The more we finish something difficult, the easier it becomes to fold your laundry.

Have you thought about why you are doing an Ironman (or marathon or whatever)? There can only be one reason. We do it because we enjoy the challenge, and ultimately believe the process will help us get closer to the person we haven’t quite uncovered.

July 15, 2014

Why Are You Doing Ironman?

Seriously, why are you doing Ironman? To prove something? To be a better person? To be in a community? To post pictures in skin tight clothing?

I think it’s really important to understand or you can get caught up in the spectacle and make the entire process counterproductive.

This morning I was swimming in a lake at 6:15 am. It was overcast, sprinkling rain, and there were two other people in the water. It was desolate, peaceful, and once I started breathing right, incredibly rewarding.

It was all I could do to relax as I plowed through the choppy waves and passed the lonely buoys one by one. The day started as Ironman training, but morphed into a positive experience for my soul. 1500 yards later my bare feet walked through the sand and I toweled off.

It wasn’t about the distance, but I was intensely in tune with the motion. My brain and body felt measurably different at the end of that swim.

I continually tell myself it’s not about the race, but it’s hard not to make it about the race.

Ironman is a big and exciting event. You train because you want to perform. Your day is on the clock and you want to cross that line in the fewest amount of ticks. But, training for Ironman is a condensed example of why life should be about the journey.

Man, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to figure out my perfect pace and ultimate goal. It becomes consuming, agonizing, and packs pressure on your bones that doesn’t deserve to be there.

There’s no time for premature optimization in life. What are you doing today?

This is why I’m not a fan of goals. It’s one thing to have a target, but to obsess over goals is a waste. 40 or 60 or 100 days from now doesn’t matter. What matters, is today.

Living with right intention, right action, and right mind will carry you to the right place. If all we think about is a goal time, we lose the moment.

Training is training. It’s teaching your body to respond better to difficult situations. It’s slowly pushing your limits so you feel better and more alive.

Ironman isn’t our job, our family or our life. It’s a vehicle to get better at all three.

In the end, it is simply a stage on which we perform for one or two days a year. The reward ceremony at graduation.

By the time you toe the line, you have done the important stuff. You’ve done the work and regardless of what happens that day, if you truly believe in your effort, you can self-define yourself as an Ironman. Whatever that means.

PS. I wrote this for myself.

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May 7, 2014

$650 For Ironman And All I Got Was . . .

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“You paid $650 to do a race? What do you get for that?”

I heard those questions a hundred times when I was training for Ironman and always responded meekly with something like, “Well, a t-shirt, a medal, and the right to say I’m an Ironman.” I knew I’d get a lot more, but it was hard to express in the beginning.

As I sit here today without a race on the calendar, it becomes a lot clearer. It’s the first time since I started running in January 2013 that I have not had a firm goal on the horizon, and I can already tell how easy it would be to fall out of pattern.

Signing up for Ironman felt like the epitome. I would do many races along the way, but that big gorilla was always hanging out in the corner. I couldn’t escape him, and in a twisted way, I didn’t want to.

He was my nemesis and my guiding light. He was the one I feared and craved at once. It was a love/hate relationship for the ages.

There were many days I hoped it was a nightmare and others when it was my only dream. Ironman is living on the edge. It is exciting, painful, alive.

It’s a strange paradox because I believe humans were built to move, but we are also becoming lazy creatures. We don’t have to write letters, we just roll over in our bed and type notes on our phone. We don’t go to the bank or the library or the football games. We make them come to us.

So what did I get for my 650 bucks?

Motivation

Ironman doesn’t budge. It just waits for you show up. And you’d better be ready when you get there or it will eat you alive.

What did I get for my $650?

Great friends with positive attitudes

I can’t tell you how amazing it is to see the same people lining up on the beach at 6 am, three days a week to “practice” swimming. We are not professionals, we pay to do this! And we don’t get paid to ride 6 hours on a brutally hilly road in the rain or run hill repeats past aging couples holding hands on the Greenway. We embrace the challenges because they are there.

What did that 650 dollar investment get me?

A better connection with the people that matter most

Like most, my Ironman declaration didn’t initially resonate with my friends and family. I’m sure it was an afterthought, or at the most, “Mike’s got another crazy idea.” But as time went on, they saw the dedication Ironman demands. They saw changes in me. Positive changes, physically and mentally. They saw passion, determination, and commitment. And it was contagious.

My Ironman training piqued curiosities and inspired change in others. I can’t tell you how many people told me, yes ME, that what I was doing inspired THEM. More proof that what you do really does matter. People really do care. And when you break it down, isn’t that what we really want from our relationships?

What did I get for $650?

A memory of a lifetime

The first day of school, high school graduation, going to college, getting your diploma, your team winning the World Series, your wedding . . . then most start the cycle over by re-living those memorable moments vicariously through their own children. We need those sparks to keep us going. And, for me, the one without children, that’s probably why Ironman was so important. It was a big, juicy reminder that life doesn’t have to fade away without memorable moments that seize every fiber of your being.

A couple hours after the race I finally got around to reading my text messages. The first one I read said, “Congratulations! You must feel dead!” I replied with this simple line, “Actually I feel more alive than I have in 10 years.”

And that’s what I got for my $650.

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March 29, 2013

Why Do Ironman?

So, Racer K came out of nowhere and raised the bar for this blog and our training. Then Coach confessed he’s been slacking. It’s piercing honesty the world craves, and they delivered. It’s also a tough act to follow, but I certainly can’t ignore it.

I’ve never been able to come to grips with my age. No matter how hard I try, I’m always older than I think I am. Maybe that’s what keeps me young.

I started my quest for endurance last January at age 48. I couldn’t run a block. My swim was more or less a breast stroke. And my bike was hanging in the garage. Now, just over 12 months later, Ironman is looming.

I’ll racing my first Ironman in the 50-54 category. What the fuck? In 2012, the gentleman that won that age group at Wisconsin checked in at 10 hours, 17 minutes, and 19 seconds. I won’t win, but I will try, because that’s my nature.

I hear it all the time, “Wow, Ironman? That’s amazing, why would you do such a thing?” And normally, before I can formulate an answer, the person who asked has drifted back to their own problems. It’s natural, normal . . . very human. And, as silly as it sounds, I have had a real struggle with being human.

A lot of times I feel like I’ve wasted big chunks of my life chasing illusion. Something new to rub across my face while dreaming of the next conquest. And it’s easy to say Ironman is another in a long line of illusions, but it goes much deeper.

Ironman training tears at the very fiber of my being. It rips me apart and will slowly put me back together. When it’s done, I simply won’t be the same person, and that is very exciting because frankly it’s exhausting trying to be someone your not.

I played baseball for years, and every time I stepped on the field I lived in fear. Fear of failure, fear of not rising to the moment, fear of not being the best me.

In baseball you survive in isolation, even though you’re on a team. If the ball trickles through your legs or you strike out with the game on the line, you stand alone, with no one to blame. You instinctively pull your cap down to cover your eyes and drift far away from the beauty of the baseball diamond, which is now the ugliest place you can think of . . . and you never want to play again.

But it’s in your blood.

The team depends on you. You depend on you. Redemption awaits, and usually comes . . . if you show up.

The more you show up, the more people believe in you. The more you believe in yourself.

On Sunday, I showed up for my third triathlon. The fact that it was a “short” Sprint did not make it easy. Distance is relative, and my stomach churned. I fought back the only way I know . . . by pounding emotions deeper inside. Shoveling that fear into my psychological furnace and burning it for energy before the fire scalded my brain.

I filed around the edge of the pool and watched as other racers jumped into the water. I watched them swim into the snake pattern of the ropes and quietly told myself to relax. “Have fun” was the Fab 5 buzz phrase that morning and I quietly said it over and over to myself while the guy behind me rambled about some bike route he loves because it “seems like one of those roads where they would shoot car commercials.”

Shut the fuck up, man, I’m trying to have fun!

Of course, he was too, I just don’t quite know how to do it yet, but I will.

The swim was 300 meters, a fraction of my training distances, and for the first 100, I felt relaxed and alive. When I pushed off the wall toward my 5th length (of twelve), I lost my breath and sunk into swim anxiety.

I wasn’t tired, hungry for air. I pushed forward. I kept showing up. Then just before the tenth length, I decided to stop at the wall and stand on the edge to gather my bearings.

I’d never been happier to reach a swim wall and slowed to stand on the ledge. Hundreds of other athletes stood in line no more than two feet away and I wallowed in embarrassment. I worried what they would think, even though none of them knew who the fuck I was, or likely cared. But you know what? I didn’t want to be a post-race “story” that people laughed about at Cracker Barrel.

My chest felt like it might explode and I caved to the humiliation. I looked away from my fellow racers as I felt for the ledge with my foot. But I’ll be damned if there was no ledge and I sank like a ton of bricks straight to the bottom of the deep end! Now I was flailing like a baby bird trying to get my head above water, and surely the laughing stock of every triathlon party for years to come.

Somehow I sucked it up and pushed off to conquer length ten.

Eleven and twelve were no picnic. Form was gone and I slashed about like a wounded turtle. Somehow I made it to the end and found the energy to climb the ladder and run through the door into 40 degree rainy weather. What a fucking great time I was having!

I was dizzy, weak, and shivering. The trek from pool to my bike was about 40 seconds worth of running barefoot on frigid asphalt before crossing a rock garden covered with carpet.

This was a perfect example of a life situation when, in the past, I’d quickly decide to run to my car and get the hell out of there! It crossed my mind, but something inside this neural grid is changing. These are the things I want to face . . . I need to face.

While I may be getting clearer on commitments and decision making, that doesn’t mean I had a clear mind. I was absolutely flustered. I snapped my bike helmet tight, then tried putting on my Crushing Iron shirt, but it got stuck on the helmet! I tried pulling it over, but there was no chance and I was tangled inside like a monkey trying to escape a cargo net.

I took off the helmet, put on the shirt, then ran toward the bike exit hoping I was going the right direction. At least I was moving.

The bike was rather uneventful, but by mile 4 my feet were numb. Oddly, it didn’t seem to bother me and I found a comfortable groove in aero position. I was cruising at around 34 kilometers per hour (I can’t figure out how to get my speedometer language off of “Holland”) when I noticed blue hair and white knuckles as I approached a driveway. Two cyclists ahead of me whizzed by and sure enough, that big ole’ Ford LTD started pulling right into my lane. I reached for my breaks, swerved into the other lane and thought about how that little old lady was probably going to church –and how I don’t have a church– and potentially the next time she went to church I could be in a casket in front of her congregation as they dabbed her teary eyes and said it wasn’t her fault.

The roads were slick as ice from the onslaught of rain and she slammed on the breaks stopping just in time, so thankfully we didn’t have to meet in some ethereal world called “the ditch” in Murfreesboro, TN.

Ahh, so the bike ended with frozen feet and thighs, which is a great way to start a run. It was a legal shot of cortisone that took away any leg pain (real or imagined) I might have had. I labored through the run and crossed the finish line just about the time my I was warming up — which I suppose is a good sign considering I would have had about 11 more hours to go if it were an Ironman.

There is something about finishing a triathlon that does my body right. The dizziness from the pool is replaced by the sore butt on the bike and the ankle pain from the run makes you forget about your ass. It’s really a nice equation.

As usual, the race humbled me. There wasn’t much fanfare and the scenery was far from electric, but something about finishing is undeniably rewarding. You show up on a cold and rainy morning to put yourself to the test. You push yourself to the limits to see how far you can go. What you’re capable of. What life is capable of.

When people ask my why I would do Ironman, I never have a clear answer. It’s obviously the challenge and accomplishment, but I think it’s more about the journey. About how the training along the way brings out the parts of you that might normally stay buried. The confidence, the clarity, the humility. You become more comfortable with your beliefs. The commitment forces you to appreciate what’s really important and you begin to lose interest in petty distraction and “filler” that sucks energy from your true path.

About halfway through that run on Sunday, I was passing a guy wearing a beard, visor, and big toothy grin. He looked to be struggling a little and I asked him how he was doing. His smile grew even bigger and he said, “Well, if you’re gonna skip church, I can’t think of a better excuse.”

Right on, brother.