Why Do I Do This Year After Year?

Last Sunday my friend Bel became an Ironman.

In response to my congratulations, and while still hobbling around with stiff and sore legs, she said:

Thanks Toni! I appreciate all the rides we were able to do together. I don't know how you do this year after year.

Bel and I weren't able to ride together as much as I would have liked - bit of a bugger when you are training for two different ironman events and your training plans don't mesh that well.  But on Sunday, with a full ironman experience (and a pseudo-second one as well!) to draw on, I was mentally with Bel every step of the way and could feel her pain as St Pete and I followed her splits coming through on www.ironmanlive.com while she managed an amazing sub-13 hour finish in Ironman Australia.

But how do I do this year after year? Or more importantly, why do I do this year after year?

Bel thinks she is one of those "one and done" Ironmen.  She's ticked it off her bucket list and will now get back to her "normal" life knowing that she has achieved an amazing goal.

She might be right.

Or she might be wrong.

Once the aches and pains have worn off, once the fatigue has disappeared, will she start thinking about the race some more?  Thinking about what she could have done differently on the day?  How she might train differently in order to do a better time next time?

This is what ironman tends to do to you, and this is what it did with me.  It plays with your mind and keeps presenting you with all of these tantalising "what if" scenarios.   It creeps into your subconscious like a virus and before you know it you have full-blown 'flu and you're pressing the "payment" button on that 2013 entry.

Ironman is so big and so complex, that it's almost impossible to have a perfect day.  Most people think of it as a three-discipline sport (swim/bike/run).  Once you get into it, though, you realise that it is actually a six-discipline sport.  Yep - SIX disciplines to master in order to have the perfect day, the holy grail of ironman:

• swim
• bike
• run
• nutrition (if you don't get your food intake right on the day you will suffer big time or, worse, record a DNF)
• rest (rest and recovery are vital in allowing your body to build and repair after big sessions - yes, those weekend naps ARE a legitimate part of the training programme!)
• mind  (in training and on the day your mental preparation is key in getting you through the hard bits - and there will be hard bits.  As Macca once tweeted, you need to embrace the suck.).

So, in some respects, the challenge of mastering the entire sport is what brings me back time after time.  There is a huge sense of satisfaction to be gained from challenging myself and testing my limits.   There are good times and there are bad times and they are all just new ways of learning about your strengths and weaknesses.

And then there are the health benefits.  While people spend squillions of dollars on every diet book under the sun I've spent my adult life rebelling and then coming to terms with what works and what doesn't work in relation to my weight control.  At my worst I weighed 108kg.  I was eating what I wanted and exercising only on a limited basis - the odd mountain bike ride here or there and some dog obedience training were my excuses for an active life.  I finally got my act together and dropped 37kg with the help of Weight Watchers and, while it was just another weight loss program built on commercial interests, I did learn two important things: (1) I had to incorporate exercise back into my life permanently, and (2) that diets don't work - a diet is simply a temporary change to your eating habits.  If you are going to make a permanent change you must change your eating (and exercise) habits forever.

The discovery of ironman, then, has provided me with the perfect balance for my permanently healthy lifestyle.  It comprises three sports, so you never get bored with only training for one of them (and less likely to get injured through overtraining, too).  I adore one sport which also happens to be the biggest component (the bike), I'm OK with swimming (it's definitely something I've become more comfortable with over the last couple of years) and I have a love/hate relationship with running.  The volume of exercise is such that I can eat relatively normally and enjoy the treats without guilt when I've done a decent workout and still maintain a weight that I am usually happy with (man, that could be a whole other blog entry!).  OK, I'm not stick-thin, but I'm more of your front row prop rather than wing, so think solid rather than delicate!  But while I'm not a tiny athlete, I am strong and I can chug away for hours, like a solid, dependable diesel engine!  

I therefore seem to have a natural predisposition for going long and ironman ticks all the boxes and then some.  This sport has become a part of mine (and St Pete's) lives and I wouldn't have it any other way.

If Bel doesn't return to Ironman then I have absolutely no doubt that she will find many other challenging and rewarding goals to aim for.  In the meantime, I am so happy for her and pleased to have played a part, albeit a very, very, small one, in helping her reach her goal.

And that's what life is all about.