An Iron decision...

 

The decision is official. I will be competing in two Ironman events over the next 9 months.  Having decided over the last two months to compete in the Ironman events, various emotions have washed over me at different times.  Trepidation, elation, excitement, fear, doubt, resolve, second thoughts, anxiousness, pride and a driving need to prepare and succeed.  

My relationship with triathlons has always been suspect.  Not least of all because I have traditionally hated to run.  Really.  That hatred is born of painful conditioning segments of soccer and football practices in High School.  Runnnig wasn't the end. Running was the means.  Running was the punishment.  Running was what  you did before and after the good stuff.  

My longest running event to date is officially the 10k speedy Spaniard during high school.  My longest unofficial event was when the soccer team ran 13 miles to Springville and back for soccer conditioning.  Unashamedly I walked for large parts of that event.  In my lifetime I have participated in less than 5 official running races.  A few 5k's and one 10k.  

Swimming.  I have traditionally loved to swim.  Not in a competitive way, but in a 'stay all afternoon at the Spanish Fork pool' kind of way.  I completed the highest swimming merit badges and did some lifeguard classes.  However, I had never raced or competed officially in a swimming event until medical school for the 4th street clinic sprint distance triathlon.  In preparation for that event I went to the pool less than 5 times to try out lane swimming.  I also went running less than 5 times to break in a pair of clearance Adidas shoes I purchased for the event.  I had been biking once a week or so with buddies during the year and the triathlon was a sprint x-terra blend with an off road course on the Bonneville shoreline trail.  

Ironically, from my description above you can tell that I was woefully under-prepared and I was blissfully unaware of that fact.  I was still in the honeymoon of my physicality where in High School your body and joints were always up for anything.  I hadn't come up against a physical wall yet and certainly not because of my age.

The triathlon went fine, but I wasn't enamored with it.  Instead, cycling set hold in my life.   I was an unabashed Lance Armstrong fan.  Michael was born July 2nd 2003 the day the Tour de France started.  I had the month off and every morning I would get up when the telecast began and would watch all 4 hours of the telecast on OLN with Phil and Paul lulling Michael to sleep and keeping my rapt attention as Lance repeated his inhuman feats of skill.  I was hooked.  The guy that used to ride his mountain bike on the condition of a shuttle to the top of the mountain. The guy who definitely made fun of those in spandex who rode their bikes where you could take a car instead.  At least a mountain bike was taking you places you couldn't have gone in a mechanized vehicle.  This mock disdain didn't last longer than Lance's slowest climb up Le Alp de Huez.  From the time I built my used Raleigh in 2004 till now I have been a fervent cyclist.  It started with me pretending to be Lance up Immigration, Big Cottonwood, Millcreek, City Creek and Little Cottonwood during my fourth year of medical school.  I participated in one formal cycling event that year--the Ulcer.  I did a fair number of group rides and lots of mountain biking in Moab, St. George and the Wasatch front.

All good things come to an end and with the end of medical school came residency.  We lived in the Loma Linda, Redlands, San Bernardino nexus in California.  I tried riding my road bike to work for a few weeks at odd hours and my first shift in the ER as a resident I actually forgot extra shoes and had to wear booties to my first shift.  I was intensely embarrassed.  It wasn't the last time I would do that though :)  Biking to work soon ended and my mountain biking was hard to maintain because of the distance to a trail head.  I could be out and back on a cycling workout before I would even arrive at the trail head in my car.  Thus I began exclusively road biking.  I was still very amateur and mildly committed to the sport.

Then came a fateful visit to Grauman's Chinese theater where we met Joseph and Amy Lee who were living in California.  We ate at Buca Di Beppo and Joseph and I--high school buddies--began talking cycling.  Joseph mentioned that he'd been looking to move to the next level and race in the some California events.  He had his eyes on the race around Lake Tahoe.  I was keenly interested and we agreed we would do it.  I was near the end of my 2nd year of residency training and I was about to break 203 pounds.  My blood pressure had officially reached a level where I probably should have started a blood pressure medicine, and my resting heart rate was cloer to 100 than I would have liked.  Spending most my time in the hospital and eating cafeteria food had not been good to me.  Joseph was a fit 175 pounds and while we sat there eating meatballs and feta cheese I realized that if I wasn't going to embarrass myself I had my work cut out for me.  In cycling, gravity is king.  That summer we had Ella and so I had one month of paternity and one month of research.  I rode my bike 5 days a week for about an hour and sometimes longer on weekends.  I committed to a 1500 calorie per day diet and by the time we hit the start line in Tahoe I weighed 173 pounds, my blood pressure was low normal and resting heart rate was under 60 bpm.  I have never reached that weight since that event, but at the time I felt really good.  I felt confident in my fitness, I was proud of my new physique, there was a real sense of relief in the health benefit I had achieved in avoiding heart disease, hypertension etc.etc.etc.  That year my grand rounds focused on the real danger of obesity and inactivity.  

Aside from the weight benefits, I loved to cycle.  I loved the amount of ground I could cover in a single ride.  I loved the vistas and the sense of accomplishment I felt from climbing big mountain peaks, being at one with the environment around me and achieving things with my body that a majority of Americans don't these days.  Aside from the race at Tahoe, my crowning achievement was a solo ride to Big Bear on my bike.  I was hooked.  In addition, the bonding Joseph and I experienced riding Tahoe that year cemented the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership in cycling and life.  

Since that fateful day near Grauman's Chinese theater, I have ridden with and without Joseph in many events including the California Death Ride, the Ultimate Challnege, Saints to Sinners, Lotoja, Local Criteriums and Stage races, Hill Climbs (Immigration and Snowbird) among others.  As my fitness and abilities on the bike improved, I would think back to my first sprint triathlon and it would nag at me.  Would I ever compete in another triathlon?  Would I consider an Ironman?  After finishing Lotoja this year well ahead of the goal I set for myself and having talked with Joseph off and on about his flirtations with running I figured I was ready to give it a go.  Lotoja took me under 10 hours and Ironman events usually take 10 plus hours to complete.  I could do this right?  

I registered for St. George 70.3 Ironman event and bought a lot of running equipment, including some Hoka running shoes.  I ran a mile at a time and after working through the aches and pains of using muscles I probably hadn't seriously used since medical school or perhaps even high school.  I took the plunge and registered for the Coeur d'Alene full Ironman.  Joseph and Kevin Abbott (my elder's quorum president) registered have also registered.  I've set forth my journey to my decision.  But the question remains.  Why Ironman?  The more I read about it, the more I realize how grueling it can be.  As I've searched myself and tried to find the justifications to Amy as to why I will take time away from her and the kids to complete this event I've come up with a variety of motivations and reasons.

Do hard things. Someone insinuated this may be a mid-life crisis for me.  I wouldn't say that, but as I near my 35th year, I'm not young, not old, but not getting any younger.  I watch the guys in the tour and the oldest guys nearing retirement are pretty near my age.  My clock is ticking and I'd like to test myself physically, that was certainly a large part of my motivation to ride my best time possible at Lotoja this year.  

Fitness and Health.   The underlying driver of this decision to workout and be physical is the definite health advantages.  I see very overweight people during every shift at the emergency department and it is hard to see.  These people are sitting around destroying their bodies and their health.  They are wasting away and they are cutting decades from their lives.  It is sad and I don't want to be party to that.  

A celebration of life.  Life is amazing.  Our bodies are amazing.  Some of my most poignant and spiritual experiences have come on the bike or in the back country as I push myself to achieve things I didn't think possible.  That testing of myself, my will and my spirit gives me a better understanding of who I am and what I'm capable of.

Friendship.  For a time there, because of complications at work, it wasn't clear that Joseph would be able to register for Coeur d'Alene.  It was disheartening.  We had experienced so much of this journey together and it is clear that I would not have been as successful or had near as much fun in the process without him.  It was with a heavy heart that I registered not knowing if he would get in (there were less than 100 spots left when I registered and he wasn't quite sure it was right for he and his family.)  However, that afternoon Joseph texted me to let me know he was in and we would be entering this next phase of our lives together.  

Family.  Last and not least my family.  I am a better person when I am confident and healthy.  I am able to give more fully to my kids and be a better example when I am giving my all in the different areas of my life.  I hope that they will see in my decision the desire to do and achieve hard things.  I hope it will motivate them to also achieve and aspire to do hard things.  Hopefully they will know that they can achieve most anything they realistically set their minds to.  My wife has been a supportive companion in our 12 years of marriage.  This next 9 months will be a journey and I have committed to her as a part of this decision that while this will be one of the hardest things I've ever done it will not overshadow the more important daily tasks of being her husband and a father.  

So, here's to the next 9 months.

Paul