The Road to the Ironman – 30 days!

I started this Ironman journey on September 9, 2009. It has been two plus years of highs and lows when I look back, the changes in one’s life in just two years are incredible. The people I have become associated with are truly some of  the best people one can associate with. Sharing in their journey’s has been something I find inspiration from when I feel like I just can’t go any further. There have been a fair share of lows in this journey but I take comfort I find something to learn from those experiences and apply them to my every day normal life.

The Ironman has molded me into a new person. The items I have learned from it help me in everyday normal life as I go forward trying my best to create a new company. Where most people would have folded, the Ironman has taught me discipline, perseverance and most of all patience.  Where would I have been if I didn’t go through this journey? That is hard to say, but one thing is for sure I am a different person because of it. Not because I earned the right to where the clothes, not because I earned the right to hear those magical words, not because I earned the right to scream at the top of my lungs that I am an Ironman, I am a different person because I took a chance. I took something that most people simply shake their head at and ask why and I said why not.

With the help of the Ironman I believe in myself and I use that everyday. Sure there are bad days, just like training for an Ironman. But what really separates one from another person is this… WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? The day I stopped blaming others for my troubles was the day I started to live. I took a chance with this Ironman idea and I have to remind myself that I completed something that 99% of the worlds population will never do, for that I will always be a changed person.

30 days and this chapter comes to a close. It has been a long journey and there will be other Ironman races in my lifetime, but it is 30 days plus one long race until a well deserved break. I am tired both physically and mentally. Look forward to running this race with a person I have developed a good relationship with and I also take comfort that there will be people all over the world tracking my progress through that day.

So I am here to say as of October 6, 2011 there will be no full Ironman’s in 2012. I will do my share of triathlons in 2012 and in fact I am planning on several 70.3 Ironman distances so I will never be that far away from something that has truly changed my life. Of course by now you should have learned when a person says they are on a break from the Ironman distance you should never really believe him. Give me a couple of good months of recovery who knows, especially when it comes to a certain lottery that comes around in February for a certain race in Kona in October. That would change everything, stayed tuned that information comes out in April. Until that time I have 4 more weeks, which 2 or 2 1/2 will still be very intense training. Then the taper begins and soon those toes will be on Panama City Beach, Florida ready to jump into the frenzy of the swim start.

Robert Key I am coming after you!

Until next time… Your Fitness Buddy