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For the purposes of this narration, my good friend Brian, aka Crilli, aka Dr. Crilliskillet, aka Crilligan, aka Milligan will continue to be known as Gimpy. I will continue to be known as Limpy.
And on this excursion we added a Rhino, aka Vince.
For the purposes of this narration, my good friend Brian, aka Crilli, aka Dr. Crilliskillet, aka Crilligan, aka Milligan will forego all of those other monikers and be known as Gimpy. For the same purposes, I will be known as Limpy. Gimpy & Limpy. And for the record, Gimpy gave us these names.
And his is more accurate than mine.
Since I don’t live in the Dayton area anymore I couldn’t do the Miamisburg Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning. Not to worry though, I quickly found that Asheville has one. As does nearly every reasonably sized city in the entire country. Americans are funny. They think they can justify eating an extra 3000 calories in the afternoon by going out and burning 300 in the morning.
“I earned it!”
I saw in the November issue of Bicycling Magazine a feature that had a list of 109 Rites of Passage. They are all cycling related (duh!). I quite enjoyed reading it, because I identified – sometimes quite deeply – with the vast majority of them. Some are good Rites, such as: 10) “Your bike computer registers triple digits for one ride”. Some are bad Rites, such as: 72) “Crashing and immediately asking, ‘How’s my bike?’ “. Some Rites, surprisingly few though, I have never experienced. Mostly because they involve things related mountain biking: 50) “Chasing a rabbit down singletrack”, or having children: 46) “Letting go of your kid’s seat and not having to grab it again”. The list ended at Number 109, but this last cycling related Rite of Passage isn’t actually a Rite. It’s an acknowledgemnet that there are many more than 109.
109) “Reading a Rites of Passage list and finding that your own favorite one is missing.”
Tuesday and Wednesday I did something unusual. I rode my bike. Why is this unusual? Three reasons. First, it’s the 25th of November and I’ve only ridden it six times this month. That’s unusual. Second, I’ve ridden two days in a row. Except for the fact that I rode on three consecutive days up to and including the Ironman, that’s something I hadn’t done since July, as near as I can remember. That’s unusual. Third, and most importantly, I rode just for the fun of it.
That’s highly unusual.
The post-Ironman inactivity recovery window has extended itself a few more days. Other than another light swim Wednesday evening, I’ve pretty much done nothing. In the meantime, I have made a whole lot of preparations for doing something. Dug out the Spinervals videos and the trainer and mats. Dug out the Yoga DVDs and the props and mats. Dug out the Core Secrets videos and weights and mats. [I seem to have a lot of mats.] I even pumped up the ball to a usable size (including a trip to Wally World to get a pump). And that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Haven’t quite convinced myself I actually need to start doing anything athletic just yet. My gut is startin’ to tell me different though. Pretty soon a reasonably moderate weight loss curve is going to become a steep, difficult one. At least I registered for the 5K Turkey Trot so I have an event to go to in a week. My first run after Ironman may actually be a ‘race’.
I’ve been back from Florida for a week now and during that time me and Coach K have been discussing and searching for what might be the next big thing. Will it be as big as an Ironman? Maybe, maybe not. Probably. There will definitely be a marathon sometime in 2010 and we’re already registered for Survival Of The Shawangunks. That’s probably somewhere just north of a Half Iron Distance event in terms of challenge. It’s a shorter bike, a longer total swim, a longer total run than a half, and involves multiple transitions through eight stages, trail running, and some pretty serious grade changes. But all of that is months away – in the latter half of next year.
I need something more immediately and imminently stupid to do.
So here’s how my first week after Ironman went:
As you can probably tell from the context, I didn’t write those bullet points. I copy/pasted it from an article on Active.com called, You Finished an Ironman, Now What?
The alarm was set for 5:00 AM, but I woke up long before that. The previous evening I was worried I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I never sleep before big events and this was going to be the biggest. An Ironman. Holy crap. 26 years since I had first heard about the Ironman in Hawaii; since I first thought: “someday I’m going to do that”; since I had first done a small local triathlon. 26 years – from that first triathlon to get to this one – the first of what I consider to be three epic journeys. The second of three epic journeys was the 13 months it took to train for this day. This second journey I have been chronicling in minute detail in this blog every day. Now the big day had arrived – and I was about to finally begin the third epic journey. Surprisingly, I did sleep beforehand. But it wasn’t the alarm that woke me. It was something else. Noise. Wind. Surf.
It was dark and the blinds were closed, but I didn’t have to get out of bed to know that something had changed overnight.
Read more on Ironman Florida 2009: Three Epic Journeys End Together…
Still haven’t gotten around to writing the epic tale. Been working on photos and galleries. In the meantime, I’ll tell you about the awesome, epic, nearly-as-exciting-as-an-Ironman swim I did at the health center I did on Thursday.
The following is from my sister and coach and fellow Ironman, Kathy. She sent it to me and asked that I post it. I have many many people to thank for helping me along the way through this adventure, and I’ll be gettting to that very soon, but “Coach K” is at the top of the list. Can’t imagine how I would have done this without her help and guidance.
Even though I don’t listen to a word she says. Read more on Guest Post: He is an Ironman…
Another quick update. I got home at about 5:30 Monday evening. Got semi-unpacked, semi-organized, semi-fed, and semi-rested. At least I no longer feel like I got run over by a semi. Feels more like a small SUV at this point. I’ve gone through some waves of nausea, first hungry as a horse, then feeling sick because I ate. I feel tired as hell, then wake up and get restless as soon as I lay down. I start to write a detailed event blog while it’s fresh in my mind, but I can’t figure out where to start. I try to organize photos from three cameras for the galleries, but then can’t focus.
In other words… it’s a day just like any other day!
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