TIME TO TRY AGAIN - TRI-TRAINING

I picked up the August and July 2008 editions of the US "Triathlete magazine", and found myself inspired again to put on those running shoes, dip into the pool at horrid hours for laps, and, peering through the glass windows of bike stores to note the new and fancy designs that beg to be brought home and ridden on. Here's the first paragraph of the editorial from Mitch Thrower (mthrower@triathletemag.com) in the July 2008 issue (page 20), which succinctly expresses my own state of mind about the sport and its place in my life then (2005) and now: "THE BEST SHAPE OF YOUR LIFE One of the greatest things about being a triathlete is that you can swim, bike, run and eat your way toward your own particular summit of absolute fitness. At some point on the journey to the peak of your personal athletic Everest, you will wake up in that special place you will call "the best share of my life." Your time there may be fleeting. Nudging externalities such as time, workload, family commitments, geography and health will sooner or later draw you away from this special place. But you'll be back." There are just some incredibly succinct truths in just that paragraph: 1. That at any point in your life, you can find your athletic Everest; 2. That like all summits, it is momentary, only that you will have other such moments again; and, 3. That whatever draws us away from triathlon training - not just the competitive events - we can take charge of our lives and pull ourselves back into it again. That was where I was in 2005 when I was not working (see my earlier blog entries), and this is where I am now (again), and trying to get some tri-training back into this life time.