Sorry for the Delay

Post 44

Weeks of training complete: 28 weeks, 3 days

Time remaining until Ironman: 3 weeks, 4 days

Miles swam: 120.171

Miles biked: 2,166.57

Miles run: 517.41

Goal: $5,000

Total raised: $2,440

It's been so long since I posted, I just wanted to get something to all y'all.

We're okay. Heidi is adjusting to staying at home with the kids. She has leads on a couple potential jobs.

I've been working through these - the most grueling weeks of training - with mixed results. My body has clearly reached its threshhold. It has told me repeatedly it is nearing its limits. I recover only to be setback badly by a pretty standard workout. That's just the way it's been.

I twisted my ankle during my long run - pretty bad. I've had to take some days off. Just to let it heal. The veins are big and bulgy and angry. It hurts when I sleep. It hurts when I sit.

I think my body has just reached the end. I'm ready. It's time to go into rest and recovery mode. One more big ride. And then it's time to let everything heal. Time to get ready by resting.

I have to follow my course of action. I know this.

Hard core endurance athletes are similar to drug users. Only the very, very, very experienced ones are capable of offering you any useful advice. The rest of them are like me - gluttons for punishment and extreme behavior wrapped up in their own personal journey.

My friend Eric - whom I really admire more and more with each passing day for his insane commitment to this art - introduced me to a web forum on whether or not Ironmen who finished over a certain time were, more or less, worthwhile. It's an absurd argument. You literally have guys suggesting that somebody who finishes an Ironman in 16 or 17 hours is somehow a worthless piece of $h!t because, seriously, in their own words "any one can do it."

Yes, a-holes work their way into any sport.

And, as I said to Eric, I imagine most people who have trained for an Ironman have to l with similar things that we have - families who need or attention, injury, personal loss, job loss, economic troubles, death, accidents ... god who knows what people live through through this eight or nine month commitment to train for an event like this.

Sorry to bring this issue into this very brief posting ... I just want you to know we're all okay. We're making do. And, most importantly, our home is filled with lots of happiness and love and laughter, just as it always is and has been.

There's so much I want to share with you. In many ways, in the past two weeks, we have slowed our lives down and discovered, I think, more of each other - Heidi and I, and Heidi and I and the kids. It's been nice.

We are blessed.

And Ironman is three weeks and four days away.

And mark my words, people, I'm gonna' finish that mofo.

I know it.

Love,

Ed