"It was a few hours later I was at home having a shower when it hit me, you really did that." - Faris Al-Sultan on winning the 2005 Ironman World Championship.
As seen by some of my blog posts my life hasn't really been on the up swing in a while. It's only recently that the fact that I've done an Ironman, I've PR-ed in marathons, I've done more in a year than most people do in a life time has finally hit me. The last 8 months have been difficult as my dad lost his job, I was flooded out of my house, suffered fiscal hard ship and recently I had trouble getting my butt to write papers. Tonight I could add another blow to that pile of disappointments, a realtionship that wasn't...maybe we are better off as just friends,maybe it's karma getting back at me,or maybe it's the hand of fate twisting me in a new dircetion. I think back to that rainy day back in March in Taupo. by all accounts there is no way in hell I should have finished as well as I did. It was raining, it was windy, and I was bonking hardcore on the bike. I didn't manage a single Century in training, most of my riding was around a flat sheltered lake in Northwestern CT,yet I managed to finish in a modest 6:18 on that leg. I went out in the run in shoes I had bought at a local shop 4 days...yes that's right 4 days before the Ironman. I ran in them twice, and they were shredding the skin off my heels like a cheese grater, by all accounts I should have been hobbling to medical with my head in my hands begging the tri gods for mercy...instead I ran a marathon PR ...yes a PR (granted my first marathon was a suffer fest.) by 6minutes,and finsihed in under 11:30. Maybe it was because I surrounded myself with the right people, listened to the right stuff,drew inspiration on why I wanted to do Ironman, why I needed to do Ironman. Seriously there is no way in hell I should have gone to Taupo last year. My parents were in a rough patch, I got the money to pay my airfare at the absolute last second, my training was haphazzard at best, but for some reason I made it. I did it on a wing and a prayer. For the first time in my life I believed that I could do anything, it was as if failure didn't apply to me,that the unconfident kid that boarded a plane at JFK had suddenly become something more. That all those "you're nuts" "wouldn't you rather do a sprint race?" "You'll never..."comments didn't exist. For the past 8 months that feeling has been buried by debt, deadlines, family issues, personal issues, fear and doubt. It's time to dig through the ashes and pull out those feelings again, that I can do anything attitude again...to suit up in that lycra armor and show myself that I am worth it again.That I can do it again. That the world can do what it did March 1, 2008 at 6:13 PM That it can kiss my hairy red ass because I am an Ironman! And God damn it I'm going to do it again! So all those to all those so called experts who are saying I can't I've got two words: WATCH ME!
R.D.
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