What if they had diagnosed me?

Post: 20

Weeks of training complete: 18 weeks, 4 days

Weeks until Ironman: 13 weeks, 3 days

Miles swam: 74.022

Miles biked: 1,080.89

Miles run: 283.31

Fundraising goal: $5,000

Total raised: $795

It always does this. Every year. Every summer. You think you're escaping the heat. And then, for some odd reason, the really bad heat comes back in late August. Hard. After a relatively mild two weeks, we've piled up the following temps since Monday: 105, 106, 107, 108 and we're looking at 109, 110 and 110 this weekend. Frickin' Phoenix, eh?

I rose at 4 a.m. this morning and was on the bike by 4:15. The length of the weekday morning workouts are increasing again. I did not finish my workout and get home until 7:15. We're talking 3 hours and 15 minutes, now, before the day even starts. By 5 p.m., it felt like I'd been up two days. Now, here I am typing away.

I've been in a relative state of calm despite the little rivers of turmoil swirling all around. I think it's probably mostly the exhaustion, but it makes it easier to cope, that's for sure.

I've come to think in recent days that, had I grown up in 2008, I probably would've been diagnosed with ADHD or something along those lines. For as long as I can remember, I have always had insane amounts of energy. In college, when people wanted to go to bed, I wanted to keep going. As I got older, the difference only became more pronounced. Oftentimes, I drank just to calm myself down, to stop my mind from running and running and running and running. Because when work was done, and my wife was tired and my friends were tired - or my friends had work and couldn't go out - there was nothing to do.

It was the same when I was a very young child. I was always getting in trouble in grammar school for acting out; walking across desks, throwing chairs out the window; talking uncontrollably; smashing teachers' lipstick. In high school, I took crepes we made in a French class, loaded them up with chocolate syrup and whipped cream and started chucking them like Frisbees down the hall. As high school basketball games, I would parade up and down the court like a freak during time outs leading some cheer while I flopped around the floor and did dives and slid. I started a riot (no lie) by doing that cheer in front of the opposing team's bench during the state championship. The game was delayed for 45 minutes with :19 seconds left to play so they could clear the court and fans out of the building.

Around 8 or 9 years old, I sewed firecrackers into dolls, played field goal kicker with bottles of PVC glue I stole from my family's hardware store, then opened and lit on fire before I kicked them; collected toys, dropped them out the second floor window of my house and threw cinder blocks on them just to see what would happen; smashed brand new windows, sprayed a hose through an open window on my sleeping mom.

I mean the list goes on and on and on and on. And yet, of course, I was a straight A student with outlandish test scores; testing at the 12th grade level in 4th and 5th grade. And so they forgave me all the time; said I was bored.

I thank God every day they did.

I never did those things because I was evil. Truth is, I don't why I did those stupid things; probably because I could get away with them and they made people laugh.

But the reason I say all these things is because my own children exhibit some of these traits of hyperactivity. They're very intelligent, very kind, very well liked; but they're crazy. Really crazy. My 1-1/2 year old daughter head bangs. She's insane. And my 3-1/2 year old son, despite being able to pronounce words like archeopteryx and unilateral properly, always seems to be looking for a thrill at the expense of some other kid, too.

I watch all these kids get diagnosed with ADHD, think about the parents who are too tired or too taxed to deal with them, or question the diagnosis and wonder: how many future normal people do we misdiagnose because we want them to be quiet and behave "properly?"

I've come to realize that Heidi and I may very well have to be prepared when the kids enter grade to school to exercise them every morning before class to help burn off some morning energy ...

... of course, all this worrying could be premature.

But what do I know? I'm tired and ready for bed.

As a side note, that pic above is from my trip a few weeks ago to raft that Middle Fork of the American; that's from an area called Tunnel Chute.

Until tomorrow (or the next day),
Ed