Prologue

Some of you may have read this entry for January 15, 2007 from my Yahoo 360 blog. It’s as good a place as any to start this new blog.

Time: Sunday November 5th, 2006 1:27 PM.

Place: Morgan Hill, CA. Intersection of Oak Glen Ave and Sycamore Dr.

This is where my dream of Ironman Arizona 2007 quietly ended. I didn’t know it at the time. I wouldn’t know it for more than 2 months, but it was all done. Finished. Roadkill. And I never saw it coming.

It was a gorgeous late fall day, and I was on my long ride for the week- a 60 miler that would take me around Uvas reservoir on some of the most scenic south valley roads. I was familiar with the course, having ridden it numerous times and raced it during the Uvas triathlon on more than one occasion. All I knew at the time was that I was tired, a little cold, and hungry but it was here, 29 miles into my ride on this quiet backcountry road, that I stood eating a Clif bar and drinking some Gatorade and watching several small flocks of wild turkeys wandering through a distant meadow, that I unknowingly gave up.

Two months and ten days later I find myself running on a treadmill in the gym at lunch. It’s the sort of slow, uncomfortable run that comes from months of inactivity. I find myself surrounded by New Years Resolutioners busily shuttling around the gym. I tell myself to just put the iPod on and run. Don’t worry about heart rate, speed, form, time… just run. I know it won’t be a long run, but that’s not the point. I start to run and I’m amazed at how quickly my mind clears and I start to piece together what’s happened over the past few months. I’ve always enjoyed the time I have alone with my thoughts when I’m working out. While they are not always pleasant dialogues with myself, they are invariably enlightening, and today is no exception.

So what happened at mile 29 on that sunny fall day? In short, I started to doubt. For the first time since I started to talk and write about doing an Ironman I started to doubt if I could really do it, and that doubt found a little crack and took root and grew. Here I was, at mile 29. 29 miles was nothing. On race day I’d have another 83 miles from this point. As I stood there I pondered that thought and wondered how on earth I would ever do it on race day. I didn’t think about it for too long. It was really not much more than a passing thought as I ate my Clif bar and watched a hawk circle overhead, and then I was back on my bike and riding again and thinking about other things. I honestly can’t remember what I thought about for the rest of the ride, or how I felt after the ride. I can look back at my log and see that I managed to hit my goal of holding 190 watts for the ride, so I should have been satisfied with the ride. I can also look at my log and see that this was the last workout for a long, long time.

to be continued…