BUT this morning, I woke up to find out that a friend came in first in her AG in Ironman Melbourne; while her husband came in 4th.
Reading her Facebook wall, the comments, really got to me. I was tearing up as I was reading them and looking at the pictures. She is one of the nicest people.
Training for Ironman can't be put into words. If you haven't done one, you'll be given advice. You'll be told, "It's like having a second job." Sure your eyes might light up with excitement when you see 15, 16, 20 hours of training on your plan in ONE week.....but you can't even understand what it is like until you are doing it.
When we triathletes track our friends at these races, it's about more than the finish. It is about all the days that you don't want to get up to get your swim done. It's about all the dirty laundry piling up. It's about leaving in the morning for a long ride/run and not returning until late in the afternoon. It's about your spouse/partner.....and their willingness to cover more chores than normal. It's about mood swings. It's about never seeming to have enough food in the house. It's about lack of confidence. It's about GREAT training days and really really bad training days.
Training for and racing an Ironman is not something that just affects you, it affects your family.
It seems like we are a tightly knit community. We are because we have to be.
We are competitive with each other because that makes us push ourselves even harder. We will openly talk about how we want to beat other. Yet, we're also going to be the first ones to give out hugs when a race doesn't go right for a friend because some times there just aren't the right words.
That's why watching my friend was so amazing. It's everything that went into just getting to the start line.
For those of you sitting there, deciding if you might want to try this triathlon thing....or for those of you getting ready to do your 6th or even 7th Ironman.......get ready for one helluva trip.