post-modern taper prayer

3 days ago i felt fat and bloated...this means the taper has started...
thankfully, the universe has since activated my latent anorexia
and my intake/output numbers are currently balanced in the right direction

it is ironman time again and i am in that surreal, anxious, and liminal space
that is the final taper week; balancing between the normal dread of what is coming
and just wanting to get the show on.

it wouldn't be a taper week if the kids weren't sick.
but i will stop asking the universe for anything
and embrace the razor's edge
between what i can and cannot control.

embrace the razor's edge but still hope not to get cut.

i am already worried about what comes next.
life without an ironman looming. what is that?
this whole year has been an ironman ramp, i know nothing else.
i look at old friends on facebook who seem to be living happy post-ironman lives
at California beach parties, going to festivals and just hanging out and i think
they must be faking...or else,  why are they living like infidels?

dear cerebral cortex, please give me the frontal lobes to:
be calm
race my own race and ignore all the testosterone and narcissism i will be surrounded by
(most importantly my own; let me not be slave to my own will to power)
have patience
stay in the moment
focus on what i can do something about

like contemplating the depths of my own self absorption,
which is like an ocean that has no end.
nothing highlights this last point like an ironman taper week.
i am coocooned within myself, in my head, which is,
not always good.

wow, how about tim at the bike shop today?
tim who i've ridden with numerous times on wednesday mornings,
whom i've drag raced with and won on warden road;
who has an ironman pedigree i would wish for,
tim, whom i may have pissed off by not staying in the order of the pack and minding my place
tim, looking through me, vacantly, like he'd never seen me before,
and maybe he really hasn't, maybe he is just as self absorbed as i am,
trapped in his own ocean.
i don't know.
or maybe it was aggression of the ultimate kind; lack of recognition.
who knows?
but i was going to say hi and he stared right through me
as though i did not exist.
which is what i need to do,
make all these men i would like to beat not exist,
because if i don't do that, i will not have my race
if they exist for me, then i am dead, and this race needs to be all about me.

then there are all of the usual things
please don't let me flat
pleast don't let me get sick
please don't let my nutrition bottle go flying off on a bump
please don't let one of my kids get so sick i need to go to the clinic
please, please, please.

we are spinozan enough around here at endurance animal to know we are asking no-one but ourselves
and wise enough not to ask ourselves for what we cannot do
and tempered enough to know there is always a plan B, always another race.

thing is
i have done this enough times
that i can't play the novice card anymore
and
i have yet
to have a really good race
at an ironman

so, this monkey is there
scratching away at my existence
with his deep little monkey claws
and i want him off

execution.
a word with such a twisting course
and such disparate meanings.

execution is what remains on the landscape.
it is what awaits the little monkey and his vicious claws.

execution. if not now. then some time. but it will happen. at some point in time.

i will execute.