OOK

So, I’m still reading this book by Jacque Steinberg called “You Are An Ironman” — about six “weekend warriors” who train to complete Ironman Arizona (the same race I am training for). I’m enjoying it, but it’s making me anxious to do more training. It also prompted me to add the countdown clock on this blog. Some of the athletes profiled in the book also kept a blog leading up to their race, and at least one of them had a countdown clock; so I had to add one!  At any rate, reading about the Ironman and doing it are vastly different things. The same could be said for kidney donation.

While I was waiting to donate my kidney, I read a lot about the procedure and what other people had experienced, and I tried to imagine what it would be like to go through with it. Believe it or not, I even watched a video of the surgery itself, just to make sure I was clear on what I was about to do. (You gotta love the Internet!)

Now, I’m going through something similar with the Ironman. God knows I’ve watched plenty of Ironman videos!

I know with my first triathlon, my knees were knocking together while I was waiting for my swim wave to start. It was the moment of no turning back. It was the moment of saying, I can do this, I’m going to do this! Getting past that moment is really all it takes. Once you’re off and running, you can finally do something with all that nervous energy. Being able to finally do it (instead of just reading or dreaming about it) — that’s when it all comes together.

Amazingly, even though I was nervous before my donation surgery, I knew the outcome was out of my hands. It was all up to the surgeons and God at that point. But with the Ironman, the pressure will be on. My training and skill and focus and presence of mind — it will all (hopefully) come together, God willing.

Right now, in my training, I am not doing anything super long. I’ve done some 3000-yard swims, and my running is in a good enough place that I can run 10 miles without trouble. But my biking (the longest event in the race) is nothing impressive at this point. The most I’ve ridden at a time is two hours. So, I feel the need to build in that area. We (my husband and I) have a three-mile swim in early May. I’m nervous about that one. Then, I’m doing  an Olympic-distance tri at the end of May. So, right now, I’m really focused on making March & April count. It’s a long road to the Ironman, though, and we don’t want to burn ourselves out.

While it’s great to read about it, I know I’ll be itching to do it. And, as the countdown clock shows, I have at least 8 months to go!