I Want to be an Ironman

I always hated watching sports or participating in them. In school I was always chosen last for any team and running more than a few yards was a nightmare: coughing, swearing, and side stitches.
In my 30's I started to grow heavier and rounder. At some point I learned that I had high cholesterol and in my early 40's I decided I should do something. I began swimming a couple of days per week. I always liked swimming, but never really done it to the point where you get out of breath.
I kept gaining weight. At some point I hooked up with my friend Bart from Sandia. He was training for triathlons. The swims became more frequent, and longer. That felt good physically, was a great way to work out aggression, but still didn't help me lose weight.
I was eating (and drinking) too much.
In the meantime Bart kept telling me how much fun it is to prepare and participate in these triathlons. I was smart enough to know that all of this involved physical pain, and I wasn't falling for his repeated attempts to sign me up for a local race. But, I did go and buy a bicycle.
I had a $130 ToysRus bike, but I felt an upgrade would motivate me to go out and use it. (The ToysRus one had cobwebs between the chain and the back wheel.)

My K2 Alturas 2

Nothing fancy, but lots of low gears and a cushy saddle ;-) The first time I rode it up a mile along Paseo, my thighs burned so badly that I could only limp for a few days!
After a while I got better at it. My heart rate monitor was telling me that sometimes I would burn between 500 and 600 kcal per hour. Most swims for me burn only about 350 kcal. My body is very efficient in not burning the calories I feed it.
Bart, a serious nut when it comes to sports, kept bugging me to start jogging and enter a race. In the Spring of 2006 I had gained 8 lbs due to traveling a lot, teaching at UNM, and not finding (or even trying) any time to exercise. So, I decided to see what would happen if I ran two miles. That's two thirds of a short (sprint) triathlon, and it did not kill me. It hurt for sure, but I had about a month left to train for the 2006 Socorro Chile Harvest Triathlon. I also learned that jogging, I can burn up to 900 kcal per hour.
Despite some setbacks and serious doubt, I did finish that race (400m swim, 12 mile bike, and a 5k run) in under and hour and a half. That's not a great time (the elite does this under an hour), but I was very happy to have finished it.
And, yes, I signed up for more and longer ones since then. What I realized was that there was always something more important, urgent, and fun than exercising. But, having signed up for a race makes you go out and train because you know that if you don't, you wont finish (the longer ones), and even if you do, it will hurt a whole lot.
Of course, the races hurt anyway, so the trick is to sign up for the next one before you have completed the current one. That way, when you limp towards the finish line and try to invent new swear words, you know you'll be back out training for the next one soon.
Over time I put about 3,500 miles onto the bike above. It is now my grocery and errands bike here in Dublin! I was able to get the one below on sale and have put almost 6,000 miles on it over the last three and a half years.

My 2007 Trek 2100

I thought I would go sooo much faster; but I didn't. It took weeks to get used to it and let my body adapt to the different geometry. I learned that I am a mediocre swimmer, a slow jogger, and an even slower bike rider.
But that's OK. I'm doing this to burn off fat. But it does bug me occasionally when every biker, including the ones with baskets on their handlebars, pases me and comments on the nice bike I have!
The ultimate in Triathlons is of course the original Ironman held in Hawaii each year. Over the years, Ironman races have proliferated and there are many to chose from, if you want to go swim 2.4 miles, bikes 112 miles, and run a marathon after that (26.2 miles). Why you would want to do such a thing is not quite clear to me. Bart showed me this video once that is supposed to illuminate the mindset:

That didn't really help, but despite that I decided at some point that I would like to try a full Ironman. Let it be close to my 50th birthday and in Switzerland (to give me an excuse to recover and vacation there afterward).
Now that I am training for the 2011 Zurich Ironman, I am questioning my sanity. In the last three years I have done five half Ironman events and finished four of them. Each one was very hard for me during training and the race itself, and because I am slow I reach the finish line by the time most people have already left.
Nevertheless, it is gratifying to finish one of these things. Especially for me who eschewed any unnecessary movement for the first forty years of my life.
At this time I feel better and am in better shape than anytime in my life before. My current self could run, swim, and bike circles around the person I was thirty years ago.

So, I'll do the Ironman in Zurich, hope to finish it (you get 16 hours to do it), and then retire from the sport. Because it is a pain in --- actually everywhere.
I signed up for it last Summer and prepared for it ever since. Switching continents and starting a new job did not help my training. Other travel, illness, and various injuries (I am not an athlete!) have interfered with my training schedule as well. I am making progress, but am somewhat behind with my long bike rides, and greatly behind in the speed I'm supposed to do these things in.
I have six more weeks to catch up a little, let my body recover, and be ready for July 10th. I'll keep you informed about my progress.