The Adventure is Today

Recollections of an Ironman Triathlon

The day is dawning. I can feel it. It is still dark out there. It is surprisingly quiet for all the shadows and bags and equipment moving lightly in the gloom. It is the proverbial deep breath before the plunge.

It is a great day to have. There were some great days leading up to this one. But now that the day is here, the day of the race, every moment seems to absorb itself. The past slips away and can’t be remembered, and the future retreats closer and closer until all there is is now. I see my hands, I feel my toes. I breathe. Here I am, and who do I think I am?

What creature am I, on this day in the year 2004, to come here with my machine, my neoprene, to race almost 1000 others like me? This day is about living the answer to that question. If you do this race, you do not have to read books on the subject. But for those who will never do an Ironman, here are some words.

Please understand that words to a blind person can never do justice to what sunshine is, or to a paralyzed person, what the flow of water is like around one’s legs, or to someone who is afraid – setting a challenge and setting about meeting it. These are magical things that words can convey, words themselves seem then to be adored, when the lesson is to take the words, throw them away, and find the courage to be all these and other things yourself, in your own deeds. The words that flow from there are yours.

So I write hoping that instead of producing voyeurism, I can inspire, induce action, induce doing. Induce you being you while you witness me being me.
It begins today.

You forget the training. You begin to fear the size of the thing you are approaching. You fret. This jumpiness can be explained in part because you are in peak physical condition, training has been scaled down from dizzy peaks, and your body is buzzing, glowing with energy. It is impossible to not spill energy over the brim, not to overflow sometimes at the sight of other athletes, or a particularly steep hill on the bike course.

I am sharing this experience with you, this experience of being human, of having an understanding of what it is like to live, to be alive, and to be engaged and functioning throughout a fine day on this planet, I am sharing this because I know many do not know.

I know many are lost, and alone and afraid. Many are sleeping, and dying. Many have been caught up in addictions and destructive patterns of behavior. I was. But now I am powerful beyond words. I hope to ring a church bell over the ocean. I hope to stir the waves, to reach you where you lie, some beautiful shipwrecks on the ocean floor. Arise. This is a call to fill your sails with the wind and the sun and the moon.

I look out of the window of my hotel. The nuclear fire swells yellow and purple against the clouds on the horizon. I see my bicycle gleaming. The silver chain has been polished. It sparkles magically at me. And before me, the sea begins to swim with stars. It is time to head down to the transition area with the other athletes. Come with me, and I will show you what the beginning of an Ironman is.

My red machine gleams as light before sunshine kisses us.
A gentle brush with the misty hand of the morning and the hairs of my arms prick up. I shiver, and anticipate the chill of the ocean, the suffocating heat of the run. This glimpse leaves me drunk and sleepy at once. I stand on the steps of the hotel.
How did it come to this?

It is like asking the sea how it happened. You see the sea, vast, immense, and blue. Do the rivers feed the sea, or does the sea, somehow, feed the rivers and become itself? It is this prolonged presence with oneself on a road, over a mountain that you begin to discover that the sea does not begin or end at the beach. It snakes up mountains and flies into the air and circles back in whirls of vapor and wind. It is all a wheel with spokes, spinning everything. In far-flung places with clear air, we see the Milky Rim arcing off the edge of our starry spoke.

In the same way every moment seems to have inevitably curled, pushed, and edged me towards this one. Did I have to conjure up energy? Sometimes. Once it becomes a habit, you swim with the tide, sometimes faster, sometimes treading water. But moving. Moving with a purpose, towards a goal.
The goal is here. Not some time or place in the future, but Now. The world suddenly seems irretrievably large, and glowing.

Now look at what you can live, and then leap in to it.