I woke up today with a head full of steam.
Or something.
Made me wonder if I had weird dreams that I couldn't remember upon waking. I had two things that were on my mind when I woke up. The first had to do with friendship (sigh....YES....again) and what I'm doing with this whole triathlon thing.
The issue of friendship has become a really big deal to me this year. One of the things that I realized is that it's probably because as of August, my sons will both be out of the house. When you have kids, they take up every bit of your life. Their friends' parents become your friends...even if the only thing you really have in common is that your kids play on the same team.
That part is gone for me. The past year, I've found that these outside friendships (outside of my kids) are people that I REALLY LIKE. People who I don't have to put on a happy face for. They accept me on my good days and bad days. We have disagreements, but we stick it out.
These people, these friends, when I lose one, I really want to figure out what happened. I always take responsibility for my role in the failing; whether or not anyone else does. I mean, it takes two for a relationship to fail. I had a couple of friendships earlier this year that ended. I know. YOU've all heard about this.
For the most part, they were not close friendships. In one case in particular, it really needed to end.
But there was one. I kept going back over what happened. When it happened, I couldn't quite put my finger on what went wrong. I kept journaling about it. I noticed something. I went back, and I re-read some things that I wrote, and I realized that I think we were both trying to "force" the friendship....much like those friends' parents.....we weren't really compatible. We just shared some of the same interests.
I felt a lot better about the friendship ending when I realized this. Of course, there are people that I do things with like swimming races or long rides....and we get along fine, but we're not really friends. I can have that too. I don't have to be BFF's with everyone.
This other friendship wasn't like that. We were really incompatible. In fact, I wondered how we even managed to stay friends as long as we had, before the final meltdown in January.
It's just funny to me. How these things seem to work out.
Anyway, this impact of friends, lead me to thinking about this long course phenomenon that has been happening. In my groups of friends, I'm the only one who doesn't go long.
And recently, they've all been talking about getting out of long course. I can tell that this isn't just a being tired of training thing. These are people that I know. I can tell that they are truly burned out. These aren't people who are distance junkies or ironman addicts. They'll do a couple of 70.3's a year or an Ironman.
In other words, this is something they have never said before.
So, no. The world isn't ending. This isn't the biggest thing since sliced bread.
Because these are people that I like, I listen to what they are saying. I listen to their reasons for getting out of it. They are many of the same reasons why I haven't done long course in years.
It makes me re-assess things.
Am I really ready for the commitment of this 70.3 this year? Did I move too fast in signing up?
After so many years of leaving long rides (because they were riding 100 miles) and I only needed to ride 3 hours and so many years of joining them for their long swims (I can't turn down an opportunity to swim 2.4 miles.)
I guess it hit me that I'll be mostly doing this training on my own.
September and October will roll around, and I'll be getting up on chilly mornings heading out to the lake to swim. I'll pack up my bike and all my stuff I need for my long ride. And turn around on Sunday and get ready for a second round of brick workouts.
Am I really ready for the commitment of this 70.3 this year?
Then, I surprised myself.
And I answered, "Yes."
Yes, because somewhere deep down inside I want to do this.
I want to see what it feels like accomplishing a goal that has been almost 6 years in the making. I want to see how I handle the challenge of being tired or sore and having to get out there for one more run.
What's my "why"?
Because I want to.
