Fear (without loathing)

Okay, so I spend most of my Ironman training time afraid to some extent. I figure by writing it down, I can at least name some fears, and you can see that it's not always fun and bravado.

Running
While running, I'm afraid of two classes of things. The first is creepy-crawlies. From bears to bees, snakes to spiders, I have images of being the first guy felled in whatever park I'm running through. It's funny, because I love being in the woods. I love the sound (or lack thereof). I love the dappled light coming through the trees, the different experience of running on soft surfaces. I love the thought required in putting each foot in a good landing spot, compared to the road slogging. Yes, I even love the wildlife. In Montana, I startled a buck coming around a corner behind a huge rock pile - it was beautiful that close (really, really friggin close). I saw a huge Georgia turtle yesterday, a few feet across, wondering why I was going so slowly. I love watching the butterflies this time of year, which I never really appreciated before moving down here. And yet, I still see a bear over every hill, a snake under every dark rock, and a yellow jacket nest hanging from each tree.

The second class of fear is the 'random misstep'. Most of y'all know my beautiful wife, and know that she took a funny step warming up to play tennis last summer, and spent the entire summer and fall nursing a Jones fracture that still predicts the weather. Another relative broke a foot walking down the sidewalk, and devastated their shoulder going down stairs that they had gone down thousands and thousands of time before. My worst training injury for my last marathon was tripping over the dog and falling down the stairs. In yesterday's long run, I put down each foot about 15,000 times. It just amazes me that I can do that, tired and dehydrated, and still remember to point the toes forward and put the flat part down. Especially since I consistently stub my toe between bed and bathroom in the middle of the night.

Cycling
Biking is a whole new level of fear for me. It's possible to hurt myself running, but, in general, I figure the result would be not being able to finish (or start) the Ironman in October. On the bike, I worry about permanent, life changing injury. As a kid I would fly down whatever hill I could find. My friends and I would play 'Chinese downhill' on our bikes, trying to knock each other over. In the summertime, we would be biking down to the harbor, and would be wearing life jackets for sailing. With these on, we were truly invincible (yeah, it was the 70's not even professional hockey players were wearing helmets yet). I had some bad falls, but basically just bounced and rolled. Now, I know that those falls would be a major problem. My helmet feels pathetically light, and the rest of my body is totally unprotected. Combine that with real speed (I've topped 40mph), feet clipped in to the bike, and a lack of experience, and I'm thankful every time I finish a ride in one piece.

And then there are cars (and motorcycles). Even these days I drive more than I cycle, and I understand how things look different with two tons of steel around you. That said, I've been honked at (a lot), crowded (a lot), and blown around (a lot). There are a few roads I ride on that have semi traffic. Despite what Breaking Away would have you believe, trucks are not fun. They put out a huge wall of wind, and generally are wide enough to make the space pretty tight. I'm highly reflective, and incredibly defensive. I've gone off the road several times, or stopped, just to defuse a situation. I'm super careful, but I'm constantly afraid every time I hear an engine behind me, or see someone approaching on a side road.

Swimming
Lots of people are terrified swimming, of drowning, sharks and snapping turtles. For some reason, I'm not. I consider myself lucky.

Failure and Looking Like a Buffoon
There's not a person who reads this that runs as slowly as I did yesterday. I had a mile, near the middle of a hot day, that took me fifteen minutes. Just try to shuffle that slowly - it's really hard. There are lots of times when I think I have no business at all attempting Kona. Sister Madonna finished it at 76 last year. Former SD Governor Frank Farrar has completed more than 25 Ironman races over the age of 65, on a 30 year old 'temporary' replacement knee. Sarah Reinertsen completed it as an above the leg amputee. And then there's me. People that have found out I was going to Kona have actually thought that I qualified. A lifetime of smoking, eating and sitting on my behind doesn't show. I'm just that slow guy, doing what everyone else is doing, with more sweat and jiggle. I'm going to be very, very close to the cutoffs in Kona, if I make them. Unlike Sarah (who missed the bike cutoff her first time around), I don't get a second chance. I'm afraid of going through all this expense, time, stress and risk, and then just plain not being able to do it. Yep, real fear there. It's made worse because I know what an opportunity it is to race in Hawaii, and the responsibility it entails to honor the luck that is bringing me there.

There's also a more subtle fear, that comes from hanging with elite athletes. I'm a little softer, and a lot rounder, than a lot of these folks I see more often than I used to. Things that are natural to them are complicated procedures or complete mysteries to me. If there's a wide shot of the athletes lining up on the pier that October morning, it'll be awfully easy to find me. I'll be the pale non-zero-body-fat guy, with the fear in his eyes. I'm the guy who doesn't know how to fix this or that on his bike, has never done a serious swim in the ocean, and who has only run three marathons and finished two half-ironmans. Imagine for a second they were auctioning off Boston symphony violin positions to newbie violinists like you. There's a performance fear, but there's also the fear based on the fact that you wouldn't know how to open your case, or how to take care of your violin. That you'd hold it wrong, and would hear the rest of the orchestra snicker while you fought to assemble your music stand, that everyone but you had set up thousands of times. It's that fear, of being the idiot in the room, that strikes when I'm out with other trigeeks, or swimming in public.

So that's it. I have fear. I deal with it. Lance is often attributed a quote that the Marines used for years before he was born - "Pain is weakness leaving the body". I love this quote, especially when my legs get tired. My corollary is "Fear is limit leaving the body". Every time I run past a hole, bike past a car, ask a stupid question, or take off my shirt in public, I'm stretching my boundaries, and knocking something else off the list of things I'm too afraid to do.