TriVeggies

Y’all, there’s one thing I haven’t been 100% honest with you about on these blog pages so far, and I really feel I need to get it off my chest.

I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m registered to race Ironman North Carolina 70.3 in (checks watch) five weeks. I’ve done this race before – and the full iron event, too, before Ironman struck it from the annual schedule – and I’ve always enjoyed it. Always found the community to be wonderful and the other athletes superb and the swim so darn fast that it pins your ears back.

But this year, so far … I’m just not feeling it. Not feeling excited about the race. Not even feeling nervous! I just think of the race on my calendar and I feel … nothing.

Some of you don’t know me too well yet, but let me assure you, I am not someone who generally feels nothing.Joy, sorrow, anger, fear, anxiety, excitement, giddiness? Yes, all of those (often on the same day). But nothing? Not often. Not me. Not here, in this life.

And so I don’t really know what to DO, precisely. Training’s going pretty well (even with the shoulder injury that kept me out of the pool for a couple of months, as well as the flirtation with overtraining a couple of weeks ago). I’m feeling fulfilled by my workout schedule. I’m seeing improvements on my bike, most especially, but also the swim and the run. The workouts are generally fun and keep my head in the game.

But the end result, the culmination of all this hard work? I just don’t feel a ding-dang thing about it at all. Usually by this point pre-race, I’m looking up where I’m going to eat, what I’m going to do on the off hours leading up to the race, what my accommodations look like on TripAdvisor, whether any of my TriDot friends will be there (and I know some will, almost certainly!). But right now I am just … not motivated to do any of that. I have a hotel reserved. I know the way down there. I know when my check-in times are and I know when the race is. That’s been about the extent of my planning, really.

It’s weird.

Here’s the thing: It is an absolute privilege to be able to race, to train, to do any of this at all. I know so many people who, due to physical or mental or financial or otherwise limitations, can’t do any of this and desperately want to. I don’t take that for granted, not for a moment. I know how lucky I am to be able to train and race for these events. Which is why it makes me feel even worse when I realize that I’m sitting here feeling nothingwhen there are a bunch of folks out there who would LOVE to be doing this and would definitely be feeling something! 

I almost didn’t write about it here because I feel so silly admitting it. But if I’m going to have a blog, I’m going to be honest; that’s how I live my life. Even when the honesty is hard to admit.

So what next?

Well, next comes training, and then we’ll see. Maybe a spark will flicker into existence in the next few weeks. Maybe it won’t. Regardless, I think the path to take will be made clear. In the meantime, I train. Those nine workouts a week aren’t going to train themselves! And right now, as ever, the joy is in the training. There is happiness in every workout, there’s gratification in every incremental improvement. There’s work happening here and it’s going to pay off.

Whether it pays off at IMNC70.3 in a few weeks remains to be seen. Whether I toe the line remains to be seen too! But in the meantime, I’ll keep working at it.

It’s not too late to feel something about this race. And I’ll let you know when I do.