Indeed those characteristics are the building blocks of how
I become interested in something. I’m
crazy enough to try most anything once.
You know, like it was in college for most of us. I’m naïve enough to believe anything people
tell me. For example, “an Ironman isn’t
REALLY that hard.” I’ve got more
ambition than I know what to do with. It’s
exhausting. As for being competitive, I
bet I’m more competitive than you. Go
ahead, one-up me, I dare you.
All of this crap started in 2006. A friend was telling me about this bike ride
he was doing: 275 miles over 3 days going from Gettysburg, PA to NYC. Now please keep in mind that I hadn’t ridden
a bike in roughly 2 decades at that time.
What was my response to his statement?
“I have to do it!” Stupid,
right? Just wait, it gets worse.
There wasn’t enough time to do the ride in 2006 but as soon
as I could, I signed on the dotted line and swore to everything that was holy
that I was going to do this ride.
Yes! Nothing can stop me
now. I’m invincible! Oh… Do
I need to buy a bike?
Well, I bought a bike.
I rode 12 miles and thought I was going to die. I wish this was an exaggeration, but that
first ride was just about as pitiful as they come. I had no water with me (who knew you needed
something like that?) and it was at least 140 degrees, a freakish weather anomaly
for the NYC metropolitan area. I was
maybe 2 miles or so from home and I passed a patch of grass with water
sprinklers just merrily sprinkling away.
You can see where this is going, right?
That’s right, in front of half of the population of Manhattan and
baby-Jesus himself, I stuck my face into that stream of water like a Labrador retriever. I wonder, have you ever had high pressured
water shooting directly into the openings of your face? There are few things more offensively refreshing
than that, my friends, few things indeed. I’m certain there are still photos of an idiot
greedily lapping up water from a sprinkler in the ground on some refrigerator
in the Midwest. Like I said, pitiful.
But I am resilient, thank you very much. I trained like a madman for that ride. 12 miles became 20. 20 became 30.
I hate math, but just assume that I did that until I reached 100.
100? Holy crap! That’s a lot, right? Yay me!
I was getting the first taste of what it felt like to achieve a goal
that you originally, maybe secretly, thought you had not even a snowballs
chance in Adam Levine’s bedroom of surviving.
I did the ride that year, all 275 miles. Sure I smashed my helmet on a cross-tie when
I ran off the road looking at a picturesque farmhouse somewhere in freakin’ New
Jersey, but I finished it. Concussion be
damned, I felt like an athlete for the first time in my life.
Let’s get crazy and jump to 2009, shall we? I was in grad school, so don’t worry, you’re
not missing anything. 2009 was the year
I graduated from school with my doctorate degree. I could officially write at the end of my
name DPT which stands for Doctor of Physical Therapy. Aside from opening a lot of doors for me, it
also made my older brother look like a turd, a goal all little brothers aspire
to.
So now that I had my DPT, what’s next? Please refer back to that blind ambition part
in the beginning. I had some here. The obvious decision came to me: I’ll run a
marathon.
Problem with that plan is I had never, in the history of all
athletic events held worldwide, run more than 2 miles at a given time. I was the kid who cheated on how many laps I
ran in the school gym during the 1-mile test… and I still came in last
place. What made me think I could run a
marathon? Folks, we may never know.
As brilliant minds do, I went online and found a marathon
about 6 months away. Atlanta, Georgia
was my destiny, to be held in March of 2010.
Clearly having no idea what I was doing, I started training. Dear reader, have you ever been to New York
during the winter? Better question: have you ever filled your skivvies with dry
ice and done the Samba? They’re
basically the same I hear.
It was cold. I hated
it. But I tried to stay positive. I kept hearing about this “runners high” that
would happen eventually. Early February
in NY doing a 20 mile run, the only things that are high are the kids at
NYU. Certainly not me, I’ll tell you
that. On the contrary, I would say I mastered
the state of “runners low.” Every part of
me wanted to scrap the race and go indoors for a nice buttered rum. Problem was, I had told everyone and their uncle
that I was doing this marathon. The only
thing that is more motivating that self-discipline and determination is guilt
and shame. Mothers have been using this
trick for years, right?
To skip the gory details, I did the race. It was ugly.
I was never high. I attacked an
innocent onlooker with viscous rhetoric.
She had it coming. I crossed that
finish line and said 10 Hail Mary’s as fast as I could, an impressive feat
considering I am not Catholic.
It was about a week later that something rather unexpected
happened: I wanted to go for a run. Not
because I had a race I had forced myself into doing. Not because my Father threatened to remove me
from his will. I just kinda wanted to
run.
My next immediate step was to check myself into the hospital
psych ward. What the hell was wrong with
me? I didn’t like this. I wasn’t a runner.
As it turns out, I actually was a runner. In the months that followed I found running
to be my own practice in meditation and mindfulness. Running was the only way I could really
create, think clearly, appreciate my life, just be. I became an addict and that drug was sa-weet.
“Ok” I said. “I have
ridden my bike more than is considered decent.
I have run a marathon and lived to show off the medal. What’s next?
Why am I talking out loud to myself,” I considered.
Enter a friend of mine who was an Ironman. Rather innocently she told me about the race. How great it was. Nothing better. Best day of her life. I assumed she was clearly a compulsive liar.
To make a long story short, we came up with this hair
brained idea to do IM Lake Placid in 2011.
Imagine my surprise when I finished that race and thought to myself: how
great it was, nothing better, best day of my life. Either my friend was right, or I was now a
self-compulsive liar. I wonder if there
is a code for that in the DSM 5.
Needless to say, I got hooked. I, in some act of near-freak accident, had
become a triathlete. Correction - I had
become an Ironman. I know because the
dude at the finish-line said it over the speakers like a drunk girl at a karaoke
bar.
People ask me why I do this to myself. Part of it is to see the look of horror when
I tell them what an Ironman is. I think
that part plays to my sadist tendencies.
I also dig the part of it that pushes my body further than it’s ever
been pushed. That clearly caters to my
masochist tendencies. My autobiography
should be titled “50 Shades of Chaffing.”
But really, the reason I keep going back for more is the
feeling I get when I do something that, when seen on paper, looks impossible. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile
run. It sounds like a fantastically
stupid thing to do, and yet I’ve done it.
I’ll do it again. Somehow,
against all reason, endurance sport is not something I have to endure at all,
but rather an opportunity to remind myself how very alive I am and how stupid
lucky I am to realize it.
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