Honored and surprised

I've been a little taken aback by the mental and training philosophies I've seen in a brief survey of the bloggers out there in the tri community. Maybe I don't realize it, but what i'm doing is pretty extreme. Never having raced, never having run a marathon, swam a mile and having done only a few centuries, and I have the audacity to assume I can finish an Ironman.

Sure why not.

Honestly, I truly believe there is nothing standing between me and this goal but my own willpower and motivation. Sure I won't beat the competition, sure I'll be beat to crap by everything in the way, and will probably exhaust myself far beyond my means or any idea of what I think I'm doing, but thats ok, I can deal, because its in pursuit of something truly meaningful to me... me. I'm fairly content with being selfish and arrogant, however, leaving everything to chance and hoping for the best, not pushing hard enough nor long enough are not in me. I will finish this large son of a bitch, and well, not the best certainly, that comes with time I assume, and who nows how time will treat my fancy.

dreams, Dreams and DREAMS

Every day I encounter these dreams of mine,cauterizing my soul with their bleak imagery and haunting wisps of reality. HOw to figure out the obscurities of my mind from these ... Concentrate... I keep going off on these tangents of thoughts as I try and figure out the best concepts and wording wfor my ideas and ramblings. By their vvery nature, ramblings should be incoherent, poorly worded, and ... there I go again, trying to find another word for tantamount, because it doesn't quite work and look where I've led myyself, far fromt he topic of dreams and their meaningfulness to the id, ego and superego. SO where to begin again. Oh yeas, my dreams of late, have been occcuring with more and more vividness and this internal dream, ex[ressedduring the waking moments of my sleep, inversely compares with the vivacity of my life. Now I'm settling into my work, Train routine, things are so slow, and yet pass so quickly. How is it possible this paradox exists within my time frame. dream - swimming with shark. Dream - completing my Ironman. DREAM - Creating an afterschool program for the gifted. Why not. ... Maybe I should start writing these lbogs when I'm not scattered all to pieces and my mind tired from a day full of vibrant nothingness, the kind always idling up behind me ready to strike away the moments of nonequilibrium... Gone now is rationality, in its place, true reamblings.

Sharks and Soldiers

I had a few dreams last night that could pass off as vivid, one in which I was exploring a land where the middle east interacted with Japanese mercenaries and the green line ran North-South past desolate outcroppings of red and white stone. Then another where soldiers were dropped into shark infested waters with some sort of propulsion and forced to make the best of things. The sharks and stingrays swam around after me/them and we tired to keep away to the best of our ability. The last dream kin of had something to do with the first one in that a mercenary from Japan, coming through hostile territory and definitely not taking any prisoners fell in love with a beautiful Japanese woman, so maybe he was a Arab mercenary in Japan, that makes more sense with the things i remember. Only now he was lost and returned to home in his native land after years of searching for his bride-to-be. Despondent and alone save for brother and father, his condition grew worse until one day a young ragged woman comes knocking at the door, scraped knees and clothing barely hanging on her. His brother calls him over to see whats going on and the mercenary finds his beloved and they go to snuggle up on the futon.

Interesting enough, I think this has quite the makings of a good story, and kind of a unique one at that. It would take some research into some of the various master swordsmen/assassins of the middle east, and the customs and culture of feudal Japan, but I'm sure a short story could evolve from the short premises. One strong on the starkness and brittle world of all those involved, wheree a unique narrative voice commands the scene A scholar assassin perhaps.

A little time left for thought

So now its time to fall asleep

A couple days forgotten

It strikes me during swims and runs and biking of carious lengths the incongruous nature of our sport. The desire to zone out and the need to be in the moment. Can you really pass four hours without a break, without stopping from the concentration of the present. I felt today the difficulty of maintaing that concentration, but also the absolute necessity of it. The need to forgo thoughts of past and future in order to summon all of the energies of the moment onto the action at hand. Difficult it si, for what happens when you lose it, you become distracted. And how do you build it? What ways will I build the moment when everything else is forgotten except for the present. So not only when I'm in that intense climbing, painvful burning muscles stage, but also when I want to cruise steady, cruise solid.

So what new insights have I had in the past few days. My swim will improve. My bike must improve, my run is doing ok. The daily routine has expanded once more, which it has needed to because I'm simply not getting the stretching I need. Unfortunately the victim of increased exercise time is sleep, for I will not give up the fam and such, so I'm down to 7 hours a night, which I've found myself surviing on already the past few weeks, soits not such a big change. Also dropping the heavy dinners, which should round out my diet nicely and I can finally say goodbye to this winter/lifetime weight, clean out my system, and see what kind of energy a proteien man has. I'm almost tempted just to eat my dog's food with some extra fruit on the side. 52% formulated proteien with 12% fat. Crazy good for you if you ask me, but it doesn't taste so great and I like my tenderloin steaks.

The tears are leaking from my eyes. 5am yoga and stretching, here I come.

Awakening

I know I sensed her, but the mistiness of her approach baffled my confused emotions. Yet I prevailed and withdrew myself from her entangled grasp, and struck down the Secretary of State before she could wrap her poisoned fangs around my jugular. Or something like this.. I don't know why I'd be having dreams about Condi Rice and a hypothetical Secretary of State but there ya go, stuck in the mind of a young professional in the middle of Boston are enough lingering details of political junkism to evoke a rather vivid dream of government oppression and back door maneuvering. Naturally, following the guidelines of all aspects of my memory, I don't know many of the details, and as I close my eyes to try and recall more, I feel their desire to stay shut so perhaps this avenue of recourse is better pursued another time, with another dream. In truth, one of the thoughts popping up.... I'm still learning to relax within myself. If thats another way of saying accept myself. What a challenge, and one which I really don't know if I can agree with, for if you accept yourself as you are, then you do you stop trying to become better, and I'm pretty sure on this one, but no one's perfect, and those that seem closest are those that really accept their perfection the least.I guess death is the final acceptance ceremony, the ultimate, and those who cannot accept themselves, perhaps they live the longest, or the shortest depending on their outlook on what it means tnot to meet your expectations.

Another stream of thought before breakfast

Balance

For the first time in awhile I feel like balance is coming to me in the pool, well that's a lie, the first time ever the balance is coming to me in the pool. Breathing no longer feels as if I'm going to never make the stroke without using my hand as a prop, not the easiest procedure in the water, although seemingly natural for the body to do. Instead to lean into that water, perhaps the 2nd most counterintuitive notion known to man after that haloed maxim about getting in a land war anywhere in Asia (I think the Persian Gulf counts).

I also had a breakthrough on the bike, training pretty hard despite my not having planned in this schedule. After awhile, I just took off my normally blessed earphones, great for commuting back and forth, back and forth, and just sat on that spinning machine and span, and let my legs work and my mind work and stream, both following each other on the peaks and the lows, and shit, it was only for an hour with 10 minutes of intervals interspersed in there, but everything flowed, well except for my damn chafing legs and the refusal of my gluteus maximus to comfortably settle into my cushion of choice. I think though, a new saddle is in order, and I'm going to get the most perfect one possible for me, regardless of cost, because just like the bed I wish I had, if I'm going to be spending the better part of most days in the darn thing, I might as well be as comfy as possible.

Time to join the lady for some zzz

Well now its another morning, and last night I dreamd of something quite odd, not sure I fully understand but at one point I was outside at the ATM, and decided to pull out 100 dollars but there was this weird guy behind me, blond, skinhead type, looking at me intently and when i pulled out the money, instead of a hundred, it was simply a large folded over one dollar bill, which I was angry about, but the guy behind me seemed to want it really badly and started circling me threateningly, so I threw it at him and while it was in the eir I charged him at the same time as he charged me, and then I woke up. Odd to say thte least. I had some other dreams but everything seems to be fading pretty rapidly so I guess I'll have to forgo that.

The goals for the day;

Eat well
Swim well
Bike well

I think I'll go on a ride down to the waterfront, although I hear the neighborhood is one of the poorer in the city, lets hope I don't get mugged or somethign fun like that.

Why not recap?

All in all, today went well, I'm pretty sure tomorrow will be much lazier than either today or Monday, but that seems to be the story. I'll probably have to figure out some way to workout on Tuesday and Thursday evenings if I decide to keep up this schedule, but at least I'll be getting a minimum of around 15 miles a day on the bike, and interval work mostly if I can get my way, although that's kind of dangerous in traffic. I figure if I work hard in the right areas I can get away with not having as many workouts. So I figure I'll spend a minimum of 55 minutes on the bike a day, 30-50 minutes in the pool and those days when I have the lunch free I'll be able to get in 45-55 minutes running. Thats about 3 hours minimum, and on the longer days, it'll be 100 min commuting, 50 minutes spinning, 30-60 minutes in the pool and if I can drop in a jog with Solon that'd be good too for an extra 20-40 minutes. I guess at the max that would be about 4 hours. To go much beyond that I'd have to dip into either sleep or relationship time, and I don't want to do either of those.

I just finished listening to this amazing book called Ultramarathon man by some guy named Dean who runs 100+ mile events all year round, while being a good father, good husband and working 8-10 hours a day. Inspirational to say the least, and while I don't think I'll start doing the 4 hours of sleep a night routine, its message of perseverance and the ability of the mind and heart to conquer and push on the body beyond its conceivable limits strikes me as the way to approach life. All aspects of life. And I feel I've started making inroads into this mindset. I'm still far too lazy, but luckily I'm trying to nip that in the butt with increased workouts, a consistent wakeup time, and the willingness to push myself. I just need to push myself, and more and more and more. It can be done with the willpower, and focus is the key. The choice I make. now that my thoughts are becoming a little discombobulated I think I'll sign off and see what tomorrow brings.

A new day, new dreams

Luckily for all of us, dreams about life can't change too much, they're based on our background and environment, genetics and personality. Those factors don't change over night. Hoever, the dreams that attack the mind do change rather rapidly, and trying to unravel their meanings is harder than catching a catfish in a alligator-infested mangrove. However, that analogy gives a sense of danger to the exercise of catching and deciphering dreams, but perhaps thats not it at all. The difficulty is where the challenge lies for how do you define flying really. No psychologoist can or should really do it for you because they don't know your past, your future plans, nor what kinds of emotions and aptitudes give you reason to soar. I think for myself though, finding myself in a dream where I am lord and comander of a fort or castle and having the ability to fly. But deeper there is a section where in a race, I let my brother do the running, and even though he should have the ability to win, he only comes in second for fear of pushing too hard too early. As an extension of my own convern for myself, perhaps I should take this into account and push harder and harder without this silly concern, to truly embrace what I feel is the perfect incarnation of self. A far different cry from lastn night's dream of finding myself at the ironman in the saem sorry shape I'm in right now.

Last week's food binge and lack of meaningful exercise took its toll, gaining me a few pounds, and now I have to take it all off, a steady downhill coaster of reducing appetite and eating right to reach a far more ideal weight for the goals I have. Its going to be hard, but its time to step up to the plate.