Another week in the life of training for an Ironman and this week definitely did not disappoint me. I have lived most of my life in the world of black and white. Everything had to have clearly defined lines. I’ve always used the excuse “I’m German, that’s just how I am” but truly I think it’s that I feel more in control when life is clearly laid out for me. The problem with living life that way is that there are no areas of possibility for the life that exists outside perfection. And when parts of my life did not meet the clearly defined areas, I would push so hard for them to fit, that often I ended up destroying them in the process.
One of the Webster definitions of Grey is neutral or dull, esp. in character or opinion. But I disagree. Grey is where the dance of life begins. Grey is where I begin to accept that life is not perfect and it doesn’t always have to be exactly what I wanted for it still to work.
I had the vision of what being an Ironman meant to me. And part of that definition was that I would run most, if not all of the marathon. Now I know that a lot happens on the day of your Ironman and oftentimes situations prevent this from happening. I understand and am completely ok with that. But I thought that if going into my Ironman, I had already planned to walk the marathon that I was somehow cheating. That I wouldn’t “really” become an Ironman. And since I wouldn’t, why do the marathon part at all? I planned on DNFing once I knew I couldn’t run. I started to refer to it as “a training day”.
Now here is where life gets interesting. A good friend of mine takes me to lunch on Monday and boldly states, “you should walk.” This is someone with 20 years experience of triathlon under his belt and several IM finishes. He is telling me it’s ok to walk? Maybe being an Ironman doesn’t have to mean one thing for me. And boom, with that realization, life changed overnight for me. I don’t mean my life in regards to my Ironman, or triathlon. I mean just about everything in my life changed this week when I opened up the door to the possibility of grey. That life does not have to look and be a certain way for it to be ok. For me to be happy.
Neutral or dull? No. Not even close. I’d say that Grey could possibly be the brightest color of them all.
Nothing is perfect, and we do end up really constraining ourselves when we feel that's the way our life has to work. I planned on taking an AG podium in my first full, and ended up with a 7hour bike split thanks to 3 flats, which lead to a 5 hour IM marathon. I wanted to quit; thought that it's not worth it if I'm not hitting my marks, but something made me push past that. There's nothing wrong with walking your IMFL marathon; I think the person that's struggling out there for 16:59 is far more of an IRONMAN than the pro who finishes in 8-9hours. There's nothing wrong going through life on a path that's not the nice paved road you envisioned, and is instead a path overtaken with rocks and thorns and roots trying to trip you up. It's that path that teaches us who we really are; the way we react when the times get tough, and the people we meet along that path that shed some light on it, telling us it's ok we're not on the easy road, and we're better off for it. Walk in your gray zone, and dance with the unexpected and unknown; you'll be stronger for it at the finish. In life, and in your competitions.
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