My definition of success

It's been almost three years since I did IMWI, and I'm only now signing up for another Ironman, which I won't do for another year. It didn't take so long because of the injuries or even the surgery, or because I was too busy building TriLife, or because of TriROK.

I just knew I wasn't ready. I knew I'd make the same mistakes again.

The first time around, I made Ironman about everything I wasn't, just to prove I could push beyond my comfort zone. There is value to doing that, but only if you are doing it for the right reasons. I was doing it for the wrong ones...to prove the points to everyone else. As a result, I had to be what I wasn't, to do what I thought I wanted.

I had to make myself thinner.
I had to make myself faster.
I had to make myself harder.
I had to push in the pool.
I had to strain on the bike.
I had to cobble together run volumes that pushed the edge of everything I was physically capable of...until I wasn't capable any longer.

Why? Because I couldn't just finish the distance...I had to prove that I could do it faster than I thought I could, fast enough to make people say, "wow."

I got hurt, I got disappointed, I learned a lot, and the finish was joyous...really and truly it was. It was a true moment of bliss, because forged in the fire of that days torture, I finally had to relent and find my OWN path to the finish. And I was happy with what I found.

So I promised myself that if I ever did Ironman again, it would be about who I WAS, not about who I WASN'T.

Coaching is what has made the difference for me. I have learned so much about the psychology, the physiology, and the social value and cost of the sport in the last five years. My clients, both TriLife and TriROK, have taught me more than I could have ever learned in my insular training world.

It's easy to give lip service to the notion that there is no cookie cutter training approach for everyone, but at the end of the day, most of us fall back into the same old habits and notions that our sport's community and history has fed on for years. More volume is better. Go harder to go faster. I have to go sub-11:30 hours to be respectable. My body fat has to be x%. My LT power has to get to Y wattage for me to go Z time on this course.

But through the slow, exacting process of working with INDIVIDUALS, on THEIR goals, in THEIR races, being part of THEIR failures and success, watching THEIR journeys wander over the sport...that's where it has sunk in for me.

You can only be successful in this sport if YOU define what success is and tell everybody else to go fuck themselves.

For some people there is only one measure of success - Kona. For others, Kona is a yawn...if they don't break 9 hours they are a failure. Hell, for a very few, they've failed if they haven't been on the podium at the Olympics or on the Big Island.

But then there are those people who are authentically and relentlessly overjoyed, just to finish, even if the lights are out and the finish line is broken down.

The key is to have YOUR dream, and have that dream to true to who and what you are. Then define success from there.

It's MY dream to have the sport I love doing serve something larger in the world. Because, as much as I NEED the mental and physical outlet of training and racing, I need to know I'm making a difference even more. The selfish aspects of the sport must be balanced with its power for raising awareness and building community...I need the intellectual and spiritual connection of the two in order to find MY success at Ironman.

Otherwise its just an expensive, physically punishing, and narcissistic exercise of number chasing and ego-building.

I guess, as usual, I want my cake and to have it too :)

And, as usual, I'm going to find a way to get it.

a