Sleeping With The Ex

I'm sitting here after a long hard day of.....reading. I have been told in the past that I was crazy to train for an Ironman. And rightfully so! But I must say that people who sit behind a desk all day are equally crazy!! I just got done with a nice 6 hour chair stint reading and reviewing material that will get me ready to pass the CO Real Estate Exam. I have not put this kind of study time in since I was in college. I forgot how draining it can be and my final assessment is that I would WAAAY rather have my ass glued to a bike saddle than a desk chair. With head wind!

I bring this up because I have made some changes to my 2010 plans. For the next year I decided to take a break from my pursuit of triathlon in order to build up a real estate business. I thought about doing both triathlon and real estate but after careful analysis I felt that, in the beginning, neither could be done to the standard at which I want them to be done at. So I had to make some tough decisions and come up with plan B.

Plan B (better) is that I will just focus on running. I come from running and I have never trained for an open marathon so there was some solid intrigue there. I joined up with Steve Jones running group here in Boulder in an attempt to have some team structure. Man I MISSED being on a team. That is where triathlon falls short. There are very few team dynamics out there. What we had going on last season with JZ and company was pretty close but still missed a true "team" feeling by a small margin. Maybe that is why they call it Tr"I"athlon???

Anyway, with the new running and real estate adventure came some adjustments. I had that "what the hell am I doing?" feeling for a good while but then I started to notice my running was getting much better and that feeling went away. Then I also realized that since I was taking a break from triathlon and nothing serious was in the immediate future regarding running that I could take a bit of time and become a "real" person again. So I decided to go hit up the Gay Ski Week in Aspen. I lost my gay card a while back because I never "did" anything anymore so I assumed that a week in Aspen with a bunch of homo's ought to do the trick.

Sure enough, I got my card renewed and I was officially "gay" again! I only had to say "Heeeey Girl!" once (thank god). I forgot how fun and funny that many gays at one time can be. It was a total blast to get back to some of my skiing roots as well. By day two we were hitting the double black tree runs until our quads wanted to explode. Unfortunately I think mine actually did. I came back with a bit of ITB knee pain most likely from all the hard skiing. I also ate shit on the board one day (I was cheating on skiing) and that may have triggered it. None the less, I am back in Boulder not running.

Hmmmmm??? Well if I can't run I suppose I could always get on the bike or go for a swim. Seems like a logical idea. Especially since I am sitting inside all day reading and going stir crazy!!! The idea wasn't as logical as I thought. Who knew that thinking about swimming or riding was going to cause such emotional chaos? All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the idea to go to the pool made me feel very strange. It was like I was about to sleep with an ex boyfriend that I had recently broke up with! No joke. I am sitting here right now coming up with all the reasons why I shouldn't go swim.

I suppose that it is because over the last few years I was given an extraordinary chance to experience something so wonderful and challenging. I traveled the world, met some of the greatest athletes in this world, developed life long friendships and pushed my own body and mind to limits that I never thought was possible. I feel in love with triathlon. And now, I seem to be feeling like we are breaking up. Yes, let me have my god damn dramatic moment THANK YOU!

I never imagined I would be feeling this way about it but obviously I am. I truly believe that we need to allow ourselves to have the feelings we have and deal with them rather than shoving them in a box and pretending they don't exist. I have tried that approach. It doesn't work at all for me.

So here I sit, broken hearted over triathlon, hearing the pool that is only a 2 min walk from my house call out my name. "I know you can't run. Come swim in me!!!" Sorry Charlie. I just can't do it right now. Give me time and maybe in the near future we can be friends again.

I know I must sound crazy, but this is the best analogy I could come up with as to how I feel regarding all the transitions in my life. I know that getting a business up and running will allow me to come back to the sport the way I want to. But for now the focus is going to have to take a shift. I'll keep you posted though, as there are odds all over town stacked against me that when the snow melts and the sun is shining that you will find me on the back of a bike train huffing and puffing my way up to Estes Park. I guess we will just have to see!

Cheers,
bdc