In 7 days I will be tying my bike to the top of the car and heading down South to Port Macquarie to do the Ironman Australia.I don't remember exactly how this relationship with triathlon started and how I got the idea of doing this really long and demanding endurance event. Long time ago, and we're talking more than 20 years ago (yes), I got a letter from my brother (internet was not in popular use then), who was living in Chicago, about what he was doing and there was a mention of Chicago Triathlon that he just finished among other things. He was on top of his game in real estate, the market was good and his enthusiasm transpired through the pages.
Was that the beginning? Sibling rivalry?
I remember once visualising myself in the future and concluding that it would be good to be always in such a shape to run a marathon once a year, do a triathlon once in a while and continue with ocean kayaking. At that time my ability to swim, bike and run however was "limited" (it still is, hence inverted coma) even though I could do those things.
Having this vague vision I started going to the pool and running regularly. I was also riding about 30kms on some weekends so I didn't see the need to improve things there (!) Running was tough. My legs were not up to it and 5 kms was pretty much all I could do for a long while. I enjoyed it though. It felt good to consider myself a runner being surrounded by sedentary people who were afraid to get their butt out the door and enjoy any sort of phisical activity and would only be reminiscing on their young days when they could do such things.
In those days I had no idea that one day I would move to Chicago, do few Chicago Triathlons, Chicago Marathon and many other shorter races. My focus was on running the Gold Coast Marathon one day while for few years being just happy participacing in 10 km race that was a part of the Gold Coast Marathon event. I would have been happy if someone somehow then could have fast forwarded the time to reveal what was in store for me.
Many other things happened in the meantime as well, which would be another story, but now, after covering 6000 kms on the bike last year, over 1600 kms running (swimming volume is not worth mentioning, but I swam 4km distance few times...) and having few days only to jumping in the water and doing Ironman Australia - it's time to evaluate. Regardless of the outcome of that event, will I continue with triathlons? And why?
My next door neighbour Andria is an Olympian, fanatic kayaker who beat Australian team in famous Molokaii race this year. Two doors down, an ex pro cyclist and triathlete Brent, around the corner - Courtney Attkinson, elite Australian triathlete. My thoughts are: why not leave the races to those who are actually good at it... For me entering an event like Ironman could be compared to Evel Knievel's jumping over the Grand Canyon on the motocycle. A ridiculous dare. And once you do it, there's no point doing it again. Sure there's the benefit of motivation for the rest of the year, but the price is also high. Sleeping in when I feel like it, family time, work and fun things you want to do on weekends are some of the things you do without when you're obsessed with long distance triathons.
I could be quite happy going back to my old vision, running a marathon once a year, biking for fun in the mountains and kayaking. But in a way I feel a little sad. It has been good few years.
