Winning and Losing

There are three things you're not allowed to say within a hundred miles of Jen's childhood home:

"Wide right."
"Forward pass."
"No goal."

For the uninitiated, these are all official calls in championship games that Buffalo lost - Two Super Bowls and a Stanley Cup finals game. In all of these cases, Buffalo was the second best team in the nation. In all three cases, they were losers that day. Even the biggest Bills and Sabres fans wouldn't say that they somehow won, and celebrate those days as great days in Buffalo history.

So, guess what. In 164 days, I am going to lose the Ironman World Championship. In fact, I am liable to get my behind handed to me. I estimate that, if everything goes perfectly, I'm not going to come in second, or even in the top thousand. In fact, the only person I know will be there that I think I have a decent chance of competing with is a 77 year old nun (really - here she is - she says that she "trains religiously"). If the stars truly align, I may finish in less than twice the time it takes the winner.

So why try? Why do it? Because I'm not racing against any of those folks, not even Sister Madonna. I'm racing myself. I win when I kick my own behind, lose when I stop improving.

I took part in a local sprint (very short) triathlon last Saturday, held in John Tanner State Park. It was a 600 meter swim, an 11 mile bike, and a 5 kilometer run. 261 people finished before me, and only 66 took longer than I did. Sounds like a clear beating, the kind of thing that should have me packing up my bike in silence and heading home, hoping that nobody saw me. Instead, if you had been at the finish, you would have seen me hooting and hollering like the world records were falling. I practically floated across the line, and high-fived the volunteer. Why? I kicked my own behind. Hard. Compared with the exact same race last year:

My swim time improved 19%
My transition from swim to bike time improved 10%
My bike time improved 13%
My transition from bike to run time improved 8%
And my run? My run time improved 31%

Overall, it took me 22 minutes less than it took me last year. That's a 21% improvement in one year. I did that, by working my tail off.

I won. I came. I saw. I kicked some butt.

So what about the Ironman? I've never done it before, so where's my win loss line? There are so many factors, so much uncertainty, what could I possibly set as my goal?

I want to race 140.6 miles in less than 17 hours. That's pretty hard - even in this championship race, 10% to 20% of competitors don't manage it. I don't know if I can do it. I'm going to work as hard as I can. I'm going to hope that Sister Madonna prays for low wind speeds (you can help if you'd like). I'm going to practice changing flat tires, and swim bike and run at every opportunity until then.

It's a tough goal, but I think I can do it. I think I can win. Heck, I think I can win at the Ironman World Championship race. How do you like them apples?