After my post yesterday, I feel the need to explain. I write these posts with the thought (incorrectly) that it's just for me, a way to flush out everything rolling around in my head. I can always tell by responses that I probably should be a little more clear since I really do have 2 or 3 people who read this.
1.) There's never been any issue about my physical ability to do a 70.3. That's not being cocky. It's just the truth. I have a number of them under my belt. Although, I couldn't do one right this second (the bike might get lost in the ever expanding booty), in the height of training (say last year), I definitely could have.
2.)The person that sent that email to me was not referring to my physical ability. They were referring to my mental state.
Were/Are they wrong? Yes. I would never register for a race that I am not ready for mentally and physically....with that said, I have a different definition for "ready" than you might expect....I'll get to that piece in a minute.
The person who sent me the email doesn't have the full story. On the other hand, this person never asked me how I felt about doing a 70.3. THAT's where the problem came in. Instead of saying, "How do you feel about this?" I got the "You're not ready for this" email.
I hope I am making sense.
Now, let me address why I haven't felt "ready" in previous years. To do so, we have to go back to IM CDA. Yea. A long long time ago. Some of you were ready my old blog when I trained for CDA, so you already know this story.
I won't go into everything, but everything that could go wrong leading up to CDA....DID go wrong. I'm talking professionally, personally, financially....every aspect of my life seem to collapse at once. It was not just me. It was our whole family. Finally, everything gave in. On Thursday, we left for CDA, and I came down with the flu. I gave it my best effort on race day. But the cold temps of the water 58 degrees and the difficulty of the bike course, did me in. I pulled myself off the course at the end of the first bike loop.
After that happened, I swore that I would not do another Ironman event until the boys were out of school. The toll of training, starting a company, taking care of two young boys (who were very active in their own sports and hobbies), it was too much for me.
We only have one chance to raise our kids. I didn't want my memories of their childhood to consist of memories of me getting up at 3am to swim in order to get to basketball games followed immediately by a long bike ride.
Because that's how it went with CDA. I saw the toll it took on Mr. Tea. I saw the toll it took on me.
Ready for me, means having the time and the support of Mr. Tea....along with the promise from me....that I wouldn't even think of doing one until they were both in college.
It has nothing to do with my head or my current abilities because those are both there.
Here we are in 2014. With Mr. Tea's blessing, I decided to sign up for a 70.3 in the fall because my youngest leaves for college in August.
Where does that leave me with Ironman?
That's a little trickier. Once I had the time to commit to training for a 70.3, I also said that I didn't want to do an Ironman until I did a 70.3 in under 6 hours.
That will happen this year. I believe my time will be in the 5:30-5:45 range at SOMA.
Why under 6 hours? Because a full Ironman is hard. Quite honestly, I don't want to be out there for 14, 15, 16, 17 hours.
However, we'll see what happens this Fall. I suspect that I'll have a good time at the race. I might want to stick with the 70.3 for another year or so.
I don't know. I'm just trying to explain (since I am asked over and over and over) why I don't do Ironman. I guess for one, I had other priorities. For 2, I never really felt it was necessary. I never really bought into the "longer is better" idea that some triathletes have. (We all know them).
Someday, yes. I will be back.
Right now, I'm looking forward to a really exciting race schedule that starts in May builds very nicely to SOMA in October.
Then, we'll see where I stand.