Ninety-two days to Kona...who's counting?

Ninety-two days to Kona…who’s counting?

I’m sitting here on the airplane on my break during a flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco. It has been a month or so since I graduated from the National War College and I am now back to my normal airline pilot routine. It does feel strange to be off active duty with the navy and back out in the public sector. I would have to admit that I really miss the academic environment grad school life offers. My year at NWC will be with me forever. I still can’t believe that the Navy gave me such a profound life opportunity as a mid-life masters degree and a chance to live in our nation’s capital for a year. I feel so blessed for the opportunity.
Now that I am back to my regular day-to-day life, my daily thoughts are again consumed with the Hawaii Ironman. My countdown timer here on my Macbook tells me I have 92 days and 17 hours until I start my fourth journey in Kona, starting with the epic swim in Kailua Bay followed by a day of ripping up and down the Queen K and the unbelievable finish on Alii Drive with the cheering crowds and all my friends and family cheering me toward the line…I cannot wait! Any Kona finisher will tell you that the few seconds of turning on to Alii Drive into those crowds stays with a guy for a lifetime. I’m ready for my fourth dose of that joy.
The Navy was generous enough to name me as their sole male representative this year to the Hawaii Ironman World Championships. In year’s past, there have been three of us to comprise the All-Navy Ironman Triathlon team. Being the one dude the Navy has selected for this years’ team has added a whole new kind of pressure that I am still reconciling in my brain. There is the additional element of realizing I have not worn an Ironman race chip around my ankle for two years. At 44 years old I wonder daily if there is still that sub 9:40 mojo flowing through my veins. Intellectually, I know it is there. My training and my recent performance at Boston let me know I am still getting faster, but the doubts still lie there down deep. Sitting quietly on this airplane with an appreciable amount of jetlag always draws forth my own doubts and questions about my fitness.
The Navy bypassed some real hosses this year to give me the nod for Kona. I’m humbled by their selection and I don’t take the All-Navy team selection committee’s comment that I have always shown up “lean, fit and ready to race” lightly. That is my exact intent this year. With the 92 days I have left, I am going to move my training right to the center of my life and really dig in there and see what I can find in the way of speed, economy and strength. Should be a very fun journey. Nobody is more curious than I how it will shake out in the lava fields.
Tune in often and I’ll let you in on how the training goes and ultimately how I hold up at “the show”. If pain is good, then it would make sense that extreme pain would be extremely good!! Time to find out.

More later…