Where did the time go?

Last month Alley and I went to volunteer and support up at Ironman Canada. Hard to believe that it’s been a year since we’d been up there under totally different reasons.  It’s exciting, nervous; the knowing in less than a night’s sleep you’ll be willingly putting your body through some serious moments, possibly damage, even if the day goes as planned. And wanting to screaming “What the f@#k did I get myself into?” However, we were just up supporting and volunteering this year. Phew!

Driving into town we took the route that the marathon runs. My feelings were mixed, I was happy that Alley got to see the course, but also felt anxious as all the feelings of last year’s ass beating suddenly started to make my leg throb.  Driving through the turn-around wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I really didn’t think it would be an issue at all, but was totally wrong. Driving through it, it just felt like this is where the worst could and did happen.

 Total meltdown 13 miles away from everything and everyone, and only being able to do 16 minute miles at best to get back. That’s 16 plus 16 for 32, 32 times 2 is 64. Add 2 minutes per mile for Porta Johns and aid stations. That’s 64 plus 8 = 72 minutes for 4 miles. What comes to 4 into 13.1, 3x for 216 minutes and 1 mile at 16 minutes for a grand total of = 232 minutes, plus the few extra minutes ( in case something goes wrong)*(wronger?). So 240 minutes / 60 = 4

From the turnaround  I had 4 hours best case scenario.

This crazy math is what I couldn’t shake as I walked last year. Over and over and over and over and over………. and over....

Anyways back to this year…phew

It was great to be up in the atmosphere of the event. Alley and I went to the Peach, of course, and walked around a bit with a giant slushy in the 90+ degree weather. I knew seeing the water that any questions I’d had about not doing this again in 2012 was out the window.

 I had Alley’s support in ’10, but this time around I think we both understand the magnitude of this decision. This means months of training 1^st, everything else an unwilling 2^nd. That always seems like some funny bumper sticker saying, however, the truth of the matter is far from funny. Time away on the bike, swim or run means time away from everything else. Everything, everyone.  That’s a hard thing to sign up for again. And it’s not like after all the training it’s a given that …. well, nevermind that

Talking w/ Alley she fully understood and even said it before I did. ‘You can’t leave a race knowing you have unfinished business on it…you know you’ll have to go back and own it’ So with that I told her 2012, regardless of the outcome would be the last 140.6 for a long while. And really, last year I got passed by a 79 year old, plenty of time to do another one down the road.