There are 84 days between the Hyannis marathon and me. My leg is back to 90% and I’m back to eating well. I did not run today, but I’ll be ramping back up my running schedule this coming week. I missed a scheduled 9 miler (not to mention a full week of running), but I’m confident with 12 weeks to go I can pull it off. After Hyannis, there is Tupper Lake Tri, a handfull of training races, and then .... well, um ....
I got the new triathlete magazine in the mail yesterday. I read the article titled “Bookends” first. It’s very short and talks about the fact that the same coach (Nick White) coached both the first finisher (Craig Alexander) and the very last finisher (Joe Marinucci). Call me a sap, but I got very choked up reading the juxtaposition of the two men and they day at Kona. I was equally moved by the fact that Crowie was at the finish line to cheer Joe in and signed his Ironman guide “To the other bookend, well done.” Name one other sport where the world champion would cheer an average “Joe” on? I also got very emotional because I thought, that could be me (I mean the one who finishes with only 103 seconds on the clock). I can’t really put into words why I want to do an Ironman, but when I read a story like this, I feel so drawn to it, inspired by the thought of it. It makes me feel like I can pretty much do anything. I looked up at Carolynn and said, “Don’t ever let me give this up.”
As most trifolk, I constantly struggle with balance. I don’t believe there is a state called balance, by the way, just our endless struggle for it. It's as if Balance is a desirable thing anyway. Balance is like a gray zone. It is just like the imaginary line between cities on a map. It's there in theory, but can you walk on it? If you did manage to walk on it, where are you? You would be nowhere, in neither city, a gray zone. What makes that a good thing? I've come to realize that the struggle I have with the idea of balance is more a struggle with presence of mind.
The one thing holding me back from signing up for the Chesapeakeman IM is the fear that I will not be able to keep up the training schedule. I know that there are plenty of people that have more demanding jobs than I do and less time to devote. I have a very understanding partner that gives me the latitude to do what I want to do, but how do I overcome the sense of guilt I feel when I step out the door for a 4 hour bike ride (or 5 or 6)? There is something in my head that gets in the way of being able to separate and partition my time. When I’m training, all I think about is being home (or occasionally work). When I am at work or home, I think about training. I’m obviously not in the moment in either place and consequently, I give off the perception that I would rather be elsewhere. That’s the problem. It's not balance, it's presence. I don't need to learn balance, I need to learn how to be more present in the tasks I have at hand. If I have set aside training time, I need to be training. If I have set aside time to be home, I need to be home, both physically and mentally. Easier said than done.
A few pages after the “Bookends” article was a letter to the editor titled “Ironman Training and Avoiding Divorce”. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
