Is This the Beginning of My Bucket List?

It’s not a goal until you tell somebody. I don’t know what it is when you tell everybody, but that’s what I’m doing. I want to finish the full Ironman in Hawaii by the time I’m fifty. My uncle Cochise has done it, and I was picking his brain at my mom’s retirement party about what goes into the training. The first thing he schooled me on was that I’d have to qualify for the race. It’s not like the River Run where I could pay a fee, show up and get my t-shirt. This thing is no joke: 2 ½ miles in the ocean, 112 miles on a bike, and 26.2 miles on foot. No suckas allowed. That’s fine. I’ve got almost twelve years to get ready, but getting ready has to start now. I think the main reason I want to do this is that I didn’t get any “juice” from finishing the River Run this year. It wasn’t quite anti-climactic but it wasn’t a big high, and I’ve found that the big high of accomplishment is something that I need more and more as I get older. I want to be able to look back on my life when I’m old and have a list of things I’ve done that impress me, things that I had to give my all to get done. As much as I try to fake it, I don’t care about my job. I don’t respect the most successful people in my field for what they’ve accomplished. If anything I hold them in contempt. I’m giving my all as a dad, and I think that will be the highlight of my life, but that’s about it. And that is why I need more things to do that require me to push myself mentally and physically. That’s the Ironman. I’m going to have to change the way I exercise. I’m going to have to check my ego. Maximum intensity can no longer be the order of the day. The only thing that will lead to will be serious injuries and not the kind I whine about on this site, but the kind that requires radical reconstructive surgery. That’s near the top of my list of things to avoid. The actual real deal event requires 18 to 20 hours of training a week. When Cochise told me that I did the math in my head and was glad I have some time to work up to it. He also recommended that I get on a strict program. I started researching programs online and he was dead on. Fortunately, I can start with sprint triathlons, which I’m almost ready for now. I just have to get my swimming down. I’m glad I wrote this. I’ve gone from “This is crazy” to “This is going to be fun”.