InnerTeub

Someone passed along the following quote from Mark’s Daily Apple:

“The contention I have is the media and corporate influence that have lured the masses to believe that running a marathon or finishing an Ironman is the ultimate endurance achievement. To me this seems backwards – to get persuaded by hype, mystique and peer pressure into an athletic goal and then re-arrange your lifestyle in order to pursue that goal. It makes better sense to make a careful analysis of your life circumstances, responsibilities, obligations and potential impact on your family, career and overall well-being, and then choose an appropriate competitive goal. Aspiring to a less challenging event that requires less training time and less physical stress might be a win/win situation all around.

I think that is where I am with endurance racing. I had some time to think during the Ironman (…ha), and I was really thinking about what it meant to me to finish that race, and if I didn’t finish, would I feel like I had to do another one to “redeem” myself (answer: resounding NO).

The entire time I was training for that race, I felt this push/pull friction against wanting to jerryrig my whole life around this race. I did that for the first race, and for my lifestyle at the time (husband deployed/flex work schedule/friends training for the same race), it worked. Life is different now, in ways I wouldn’t trade for the world, and I just didn’t want to structure a life that lived in service to Ironman training.

I got lucky – I had a coach and a training plan that Totally Got It, and I could not have asked for a better set up. If I do it again – and hey, I might – I will absolutely do the exact same thing.

I am proud of myself for being an Ironman. I spent a lot of time saying the phrase “I can’t do it” (“it” being defined as strenuous activity) because of my heart problem, and I was really able to retrain my attitude and beliefs out of that cop out. But now I think it’s more important for me to find a way to feel successful and badass while living my life in all arenas that aren’t athletically related.

So. The Plan:

1. Crossfit, baby. I love Crossfit so much, I cannot even tell you. I hesitate to be a complete fitness douche about it, because I know that wears thin, but man, it is such a fun way to get in shape/stay in shape/kick your own ass. So I’m going to focus on that, as much as I can, because it’s awesome. If I could give everyone I know a gift, I would give them the motivation to go check it out and see what it’s about so they could stop rolling their eyes when I talk about it and start seeing how awesome it is.

2. I want to run the Army 10 miler this fall, and I want to do it well. I haven’t really defined what “well” looks like just yet, but in a very abstract way I can say that I want to feel very proud of my time and my effort.

3. Primal/Paleo eating. In addition to not wanting to be a fitness douche, I also super don’t want to be a food douche, but there’s so many good things that come to me from eating well that I’m having a hard time avoiding talking about it. But needless to say, The Boss and I cook a lot at home, and while we generally trend towards a Paleo cooking lifestyle, we got away from it at the end of IM training (we just had to have the carbs. It was too hard without it), but I’m happy to be back to it. (Especially now that I’ve finish the MDot birthday cake.)

So. I think I can do all these things and still be a fully functional participant in my life. Hell, I think these things will aid me in being a fully functional participant in my life.

For now, anyway. Ironman’s a cruel bitch and she almost always gets you to come back.