VALHALLA

growing up, i confused valhalla with the judeo-christian concept of heaven and i thought of it as a permanent state or final resting place, where brave warriors were privileged to perpetually die in battle and then rise again, to repeat; forever.

turns out i was wrong. the "hall of the dead", in norse mythology, is not forever. it is a place where brave warriors live in a long (i mean eons), but ultimately temporary state of incessant training and feasting. it must have seemed like heaven to them, but it was not forever. they were really there to assist the god Odin, in preparing for the Ragnarok, a battle in which they are all doomed to be defeated. where they go after that,  a mystery....

lately, i have been thinking about valhalla a lot during my training sessions. there is the obvious idea that a triathlete's ideal existence closely parallels that described in valhalla. train, fight, repair, feast, repeat. but a bit deeper than that, there is the acknowledgement that life is a dynamic, not static, affair, and that, in spite of the illusion of constancy that a life of training can create, it is all temporary, and ultimately, doomed to end.

ragnarok is the final destiny, the end of the Gods themselves, and an end to Valhalla. the good thing about Ragnarok, at least from my point of view, and, presumably, also, those who are "living the dream" in Valhalla, is that it is like the day that never comes. or at least, like the end, for all of us, it is far enough away at each moment, that we can forget about it. this is how i tend to live my life. aware that my own private Ragnorok is inevitable, but most blissful, when i am immersed in a mindful appreciation of the present moment, which by default, means i am not thinking about the inevitable collapse of my universe.

so, the final battle, the end of valhalla, is in some sense, the day that never comes, but the day that must come. this keeps things moving in a pleasing way.

however, the day that never comes, has yet a different meaning when one considers racing. i suppose that real valhalla would mean i could race an ironman every day. but real life valhalla means i spend most of my time training. that is where i get most of my joy, my satisfaction. that is where i spend most of my time. if you ever calculated the ratio of time spent racing to training, it would become painfully obvious that someone who lives to race, is like someone who is only happy on christmas.

but racing is present in my head, even in the most extended training block. i dream of the perfect race, the day that i over-step, where everything clicks and i am able to, not only live up to everything i trained for, but even exceed it. this is the other meaning to the "day that never comes". the perfect race. always sought after, but never realized. (hopefully realized, at least once).

last weekend in syracuse was one of the more brutal days in my racing experience. several things went wrong, foremost, a slow leak in my disc which meant that i had less than 50 psi by the end of the bike, and the fact that it was the single, hottest day of the year, at the end of a much colder than usual spring, it was like abhu dhabi, and there was no time to adapt. my race ended up being worse than my worst nightmare, short of a DNF that is. it had me thinking about how to situate the whole thing in a greater context. it has had me struggling, not so much with the idea of training, but with what exactly racing means to me, and why i do it. valhalla, ragnarok, and the day that never comes are the answers i have come up with. they are my metaphors. and i am happy to say that i am looking forward to dying another day.

just another day riding through valhalla