Why Tri...(Revised 2/25)?

I just returned from a business trip out west and struck up a conversation with the lady sitting next to me on the plane. She was returning from a competition with her college gymnastics team. Somehow, the conversation shifted to me doing triathlons and I mentioned that I had finished 3 half Ironman triathlons and was preparing for my first full Ironman this April. She asked, "How do you feel afterward?" I replied, "Completely exhausted. Beat up from head to toe. Like someone took me to the woodshed out back and beat me with a baseball bat, front and back." "Then why do you do it?" she asked.

Good question. So why do I do this, especially if it hurts so bad, takes so much time, and cost so much money?

Well, it started about two years ago. It was Oct '05 and I was turning 45. My older son was into his terrible teens. (The terrible 2's are cute/funny compared to the terrible teens. Just wait!) I went from being his best friend to "Darth Vader Daddy" overnight. Still don't know why. Five years later and no change in sight either. My wife was hauling my younger son to all of his activities every night. Why do we sign up our kids for every conceivable acitivity on earth? What happened to the days when kids just played at home? Anyway, so there I sat, night after night, on the couch, watching ESPN, eating another lucious bowl of cereal, which I had prepared all by myself. Look out Emeril!

Finally, one day in the office I nearly screamed at the top of my lungs! I was about to go nuts! (Some would say AMEN to that!) I had nothing to do and no one to do it with. So I decided, out of the clear blue yonder, that I would run a marathon. I was not a runner per se, but had at least run off and on over the years. Had done one 10k about 20 years earlier and that was it. So I downloaded a marathon training program, bought some new running shoes, hired a personal trainer, and off I went. I gave myself one year to train for a marathon. I was going slow but steady. Somewhere along the way, my personal trainer (Chuck) suggested that I do a triathlon. He said it would be good cross training and the swim and bike training would be lower impact on my body than running. "Are you crazy?" I said. "Read my lips! I can't swim! Not at all. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Not happening! Can we get back to training for a marathon?"

Naturally, I soon developed IT Band problems, had to get Physical Therapy, and could not run for the next 3 months. (Middle age creeps up fast and is not real nice about it.) So I reluctantly decided to try swimming. Thankfully, no one was around to witness this debacle. I swam one lap, 25 yards, and nearly died! This was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life! Harder than football, basketball, running, cheerleading (another story) or weight lifting! Thankfully, I was the only one in the pool. I stayed at one end, fussing at myself for even trying this. "This is stupid!" I said out loud. "I'm too old for this!" "I'll find something else to do even if it means playing checkers!" Then I swam another lap. Then a couple more laps. Afterward, I was completely exhausted and probably had not swum 10 laps total, with a rest between each one!

The best decision I made was to hire a swim coach. I figured that I could flail away at the water for years with no progress, or pay someone to teach me how to swim correctly. I took lessons for the next 3 months and got ecstatic at each small measure of success along the way! I remember when I actually swam my first 1/3 mile, 600 yards without stopping. You would have thought I had swum the English channel! I emailed my coach (a 17 time All American swimmer in college) about my enormous success! She must have held back the laughter when I said I swam 600 yards straight, not even a good warm up for her. But she was encouraging. So I kept going.

Free style always tired me out quickly, so I learned to rotate my strokes between free style, back stroke, and breast stroke. By the time I got to my first triathlon in May '06, I had to swim 200 yards (8 laps), bike 8m and run 2m. Wooo Hoooo! It was a staggered start in a pool. After about 5 strokes, I panicked and switched to breast stroke to finish. My next tri was in June '06, my first open water swim with a wave start. After about 10 strokes and drinking plenty of nasty lake water, I switched back to breast stroke and have stayed with it ever since. I noticed that I was keeping up with most of the other folks doing free style. Many of them swam in a zig zag manner wasting time and energy. Some stopped to rest at the bouys or turned over on their back to rest while I just puttered by them. So off I went, breast stroke and all. I wasn't trying to win, just finish. Besides, free style makes me dizzy. If you have ever had vertigo, then you understand.

By Oct '06 I had signed up for my first half Ironman triathlon, only 5 months after my first begginer tri. When I told a few people about signing up for this some said, "No way! Gary, you are NOT ready for this distance! It took me X years to move up to this distance. You need to wait, take your time, and work your way up. Maybe in another year or two you can do a half IM, but not now." I never said anything but just smiled and sat back quietly. All the while I wanted to say, "Thank you. I guarantee you that I will finish this thing. Book it!" All I need is for someone to tell me I can't do something, then I proceed to do just that. I can't take credit for it though. It's just a gift. Go ask my wife! So in Oct '06, I flew to Tempe, AZ and completed the Soma Half Ironman. Not a world record pace mind you, but I finished and beat my goal. So I was happy and that is all that mattered. The rest of the world can just, well, you get the picture...

Back to the original question: So why do I do this? (After giving this more thought during my 10m run last night, I thought it best to revise my answer. So here goes.) Why do I continue to train, race, hurt, and repeat this cycle? It's hard to explain really. I guess I'm addicted, obsessed, possessed, or whatever adjective you want to use to describe it. I tried to hunt, golf, or fish (the 3 major religions in Mississippi). None of them took. Too boring. I get bored easily and needed a challenge. Triathlon provides me with a never ending challenge to go further and faster! One can never master all the elements of swim, bike, run, nutrition, strength training and flexibility. Every now and then, it provides a rush that feels great and is worth the pain at the end. Plus, I've met a lot of great people in the process. It gives me a social outlet, a physical training regimen, and mental discipline. It also provides me with an escape from the reality, or monotony, of every day life. It has helped me overcome so many mental barriers that I could not begin to list them all. How else could you get a middle aged male couch potato to lose 20 pounds, give up eating red meat, pizza, shave his legs (a bloody experience), wear a Speedo for swim training (not a pretty sight), get up at 4:00 am on Sat for a 10m run to beat the oppressive Mississippi summer heat, bike 100m on a trainer in the den, etc...

So why do I tri? I do triathlons for 3 basic reasons: 1) the RUSH!, 2) the EDGE!, and 3) the HUMILITY/GRATITUDE of the sport! The Rush I get at times during races is fantastic! It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's worth all the blood, sweat, and tears I put into this. For example, during my best single race, the Disney Triathlon (Olympic) in Sept '06, the bike portion of the race was my best ever! I left T1 on a tear, not thinking about pacing myself. I just took off as fast as I could go. Race conditions that day were perfect! A flat, fast course, no wind, heat, or hills. For the first time, I began to pass other people instead of everybody passing me. As I passed people, it felt like I took their energy away and filled my tank more and more. I was going 20+ mph, which is fast for me. I decided to see how long I could keep it up and surprised myself by keeping it a long way. I finished the bike portion at an average pace of 19.5 mph! I have never biked that fast before or since! It was a true adrenaline rush! I felt God's presence to the point where I thought I would bust wide open! I also felt it during the bike at the Longhorn 1/2 Ironman in Oct '07. I was on my new GURU tri bike and feeling it. There was one long down hill where I got up to 42 mph! I was flying! Then I came to the point where I thought "Oh my God! I'm about to die!" That's when I prayed "Lord, please help me not to kill myself by wrecking and sliding 200 yards on the asphalt. I'll never do this again!" (Of course, He and I both knew that I would. But He protected me anyway.) There is a brief moment between feeling the Rush and feeling the Edge, which brings me to the second point. I don't consider myself an "adrenaline junky," although maybe I'm becoming one. But I want to push myself as far as humanly possible, without going over the edge.

I just returned from a snow skiing trip to Montana. I'm a novice snow skiier but was learning quickly. There comes a moment when I'm in a groove going down hill, cutting back and forth, where it feels awesome, the Rush is present and it feels great! Then I cross over the line of feeling the Rush to feeling the Edge. The Edge is right on the precipice of feeling ecstatic to looking for a place to crash. I want to feel the Edge, but not the crash. It's that split second in time where the Rush is escalated just a little bit more, beyond what I can manage, and yet seem to manage somehow, at least hopefully, most of the time. I'm not on a death wish. It's just that feeling of going all out and doing my best and knowing I gave it my all. I almost felt it at the end of the Longhorn half IM. But after the race, I felt like I could have given a little bit more. I want to finish a race, any race, any distance, knowing that I through caution to the wind, gave it everything I possibly could, and have nothing left at the end at all but to collapse and be totally spent. However, I don't want to be hauled off on a stretcher with an oxygen bag taped to me like another guy at Longhorn. I'm not gunning for that experience.

Finally, there is the humility and gratitude I get from racing. The highlight of my worst race occured before the race started, at least for me. Before the race, one of the race officials asked me to help a physically challenged man enter the Gulf of Mexico for the swim portion of the race. I was so thankful that he asked me to do this and thankful that I was about to do the race with all my limbs in tact and functioning whereas this man could not walk on his own. Perhaps I should have gone on home after this part of the race. Perhaps my worst race was actually my best!