IN THE BAG

Texas has yet to happen, yet psychologically, physiologically, texas the process, the build that was texas, this particular journey; its pretty much in the bag. i have inflicted the most severe and prolonged stress on my system and now is that period where i try to reap the benefits, to recover, to maximize adaptation, to become fresh again.

it's just consolidation now.

this feeling, most familiar now, is a strange kind of liminal space. i feel like a chrysalis; something waiting to happen. but, on the other hand...i feel a strange sense of sadness, that the energy of another ironman build is coming to a close. these builds are like children, they are a lot of work, each is different from the start, each has its own personality...but how many children can i have?

"anna" was a character in a d.h. lawrence novel i once read, who became addicted to her own fertility. she had enough babies to qualify herself as a type of gaia figure. yet for anna, the actual bringing of her children into fruition as full blown humans was not the appeal; she craved the intense dyad of mother/fetus, mother/infant, this is what turned anna's crank....i can relate, in some ways, i like being pregnant with an ironman, i like carrying one inside my body, breastfeeding it even, i enjoy the act of nurturing the potential of an ironman. the actual race is, in some ways, just not as important as the build.

this build has been about winter and cold, about discovering the outdoors again after being in a long, dark and cavernous winter,  about my kids being sick (again, and again, and again), about music, and lots of it, streamed into my brain with a rapidity and variety that my pre-historic, year of the moon landing self could never have imagined possible.

i have streamed lots and lots of new and old music, and taken a time-shuttle into the 70's, into the music that brings me back to being a child athlete, to when my father was still with me, to long summers in the niagara fruit belt,  riding my old steel miele in my speedos past orchards pretending i was dave scott; bjorn borg in his off white fila pinstripes falling to his knees, double socks in tennis shoes, firebirds, disco, the Who, the Stones, the Allman's, Zeppelin, psychedelia,  banging tennis balls against the wall on the porch in the warm sun, playing Marco Polo in our above-ground swimming pool. roller skates....my sister's home-made fudge cooling off on the back porch.

and then there was the 80's...brought to life so vividly in a moment of epiphany. a dokken ballad playing as i reach into my soul on the trainer. memories of 30 years ago...hair, skinny pants, neon, teen romance, tennis tournaments all over North America, hot summer. suddenly i am in the moment; for the first time today, actually taken away by the music, transported, yet solidly in the present, gripping it tightly as it slips through my fingers. i am not thinking about how much longer i have in this set. i feel free.

 i remember jo dutra, my friend and training partner. gone. i begin to cry prolifically, my mind be-fuddled (or is that sharpened?) by the endorphins and the pain, and i  experience powerful and sad, yet sweet emotions. i realize that i have been suppressing my feelings about the knowledge that someone so important to my early development is gone forever...i am glad to finally cry about it. this is that region where workouts become therapy and it is hard to come by. i have accessed something deep within the soft tissues of my self today.  i embrace it. i release it.

time erases everything, yet without time, none of us, and nothing can be real.

texas, here i come. and this one will be for jo, at least in part. jo, i will think about and celebrate you as i slog through the heat on the marathon. i will toast the 80's with sports drink; tennis, a life of athletics, and all the great memories i have of you and those wonderful days we shared together working our butts off, being athletes, in the 80's. i am still here, still doing it. i miss you, and i miss then.