Becoming Iron
Well, we’re almost at our destination. For the third year in a row, I’ll be making the plunge into Lake Monona, tackling the hills of the urban Midwest, and plodding through downtown Madison. But really, it’s not about the swim or the run and contrary to Bolder’s motto, it’s not even really about the bike (although I do love the bike!).
Ultimately, it’s about the journey that takes place. It’s what happens to you as soon as you click “Submit” for your entry into the big show. A year out, you don’t fully understand what you’ve gotten yourself into and really have no idea what lies ahead. Throughout the course of the season, you push yourself to places you never thought you could get to - that you never imagined that you’d be. You psych yourself up and have great ambitions of riding to the end of the world to see what’s there. And when you arrive, utterly drained and exhausted, you realize you’re not at the end at all and that there is a whole new stretch of pavement you never even knew existed, but that still needs to be charted. What used to be “the end” is now nothing more than part of your intimate world and a place that isn’t strange, but now familiar.
I remember my first run with my best friend. We were only going to run three miles. THREE. MILES. I pulled up at 1.1 miles into the run gasping and too tired to run any further. I remember when the idea of running six miles seemed like a monumental feat and thinking how studly I’d be if I could run a whole six miles straight. I remember riding 80 miles for the first time and how I got back home and collapsed on the floor utterly exhausted and thinking to myself, “I’m never going to be able to ride 112 miles, let alone do it and run afterwards?!”
And I could go on and on about my former self and how I have accomplished things that I never thought possible over the course of the past three years. But I guess what I’m trying to say is that Ironman isn’t so much about the race and travelling 140.6 miles in a day. The heart of Ironman is what you’ve already done before you even leave for the race. It’s about the lessons that you learn and the knowledge that you gain along the way. Not knowledge about heart rate zones, glycemic index, and lactic threshold. I’m talking about a deep knowledge of yourself and who you are at the core of your own being. Just like some distances used to seem insurmountable but are now routine, along the way there are mental obstacles that perhaps used to be mountains that are now nothing more than a speed bump. And the real beauty of the Iron journey is that this mental fortitude that is gained along the way is something that carries you not only through your workouts and races, but is also something that sticks with you for the rest of your life.
Have you ever noticed that Ironman athletes as a whole have this strange ability to willfully shrink down any problem into something so small that it almost isn’t there? It’s something that I didn’t know about let alone think about when I first signed up for this madness a few years back, but it’s without a doubt the gift that Ironman has given me that I’m most appreciative of. We continually push ourselves to the brink and routinely suffer day in and day out to the point where it takes an extraordinary amount of pain to make us suffer. And slowly, things that used to bother us and used to make us “suffer” no longer do. The world slows down. We notice things we didn’t used to before because we’re not so stressed, paranoid, and worried all the time about things that we cannot control. At least that’s the way it has been for me.
So, for those thinking about one day doing something that you’re not sure you can… or that are too scared to commit because you fear the unknown, jump in head first. The truth is, you’ll never know. Others have posted on their blogs that they don’t know if they’ll even finish on Sunday. Hell… this is my third and I don’t really know if I’ll finish on Sunday - stranger things have happened. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter what your result is at the finish line, be it first, last, or even DNF. What matters is the refinement that happens to you along the way.
Anyway, I’ve gone and said too much. I’ll be leaving bright and early on Friday for Madison. For those that want to follow along at home (you can do so at http://www.ironmanlive.com), I’ll be donning number 586 on Sunday. Thank you to everyone who has followed along so far. And to the recent lurkers of my blog that have come out of the shadows to say hi. Your support means more to me than you all know.