Couch to Ironman to Couch to ...

Tony,
I love reading these stories, so thank you for taking the time to share it with
us. Congrats on the weight loss, confidence, and ambition that you've gained
through the triathlon experience! I think a  lot of people will understand where
you're coming from, myself included. IM takes an incredible amount of mental
determination, mostly because of the time commitment. Being an unmarried guy
with no kids, I can't believe how mothers and fathers are capable of doing it
all. I give them a ton of credit. Someone asked me about the time commitment
aspect once and I told her that I wasn't frustrated at how long the training
takes, that I'm cool with. What frustrates me is that there aren't enough hours
in the day to also do everything else. Working a lot really added the mental
stress on for me. I'd get up at 4:30am to swim, go straight to work and work
until 7 or 8 at night, hop on my bike for 2.5 hours and have enough time to
shove some food in my mouth before crawling into bed all sweaty because I didn't
have time to shower. I was trying to scrape together as much sleep as possible,
which included sleeping either in my car or at my desk during lunch breaks. That
certainly leads to a burnout. If I had the community available to me to do more
training in a group setting, I'd probably be more fired up about it, but as I
start to get older and appreciate every hour of each day, I start to wonder how
many hours per day I'm willing to be all by myself, staring at the bottom of a
pool or running through the woods in the dark. One dark morning after a hard run
interval all alone, I actually caught myself patting myself on the back and it
completely freaked me out because I felt like someone else was there with me.
That's when I realized how much time I was spending without other human
interaction! I think you've got the right idea doing shorter races. They're so
much fun, and don't require the time commitment of IM. I'm so glad I did them,
but it definitely takes a certain mental state to be able to handle it all.

Thank you so much for sharing this.  I've been in the tri world for about five years now and will be training for my first IM starting in January.   I know I have felt burned out after training for both of my HIMs, so I read this as a cautionary tale.  Congrats on getting back to business and finding the motivation to get going again. 

IM distance isn't for everyone, and it isn't necessarily a natural progression.  But some people see it that way as the next thing to conquer and maybe it doesn't work for their schedule or their personality or family.

I enjoy long distance events but I'm not a type A personality and I think that helps me avoid overdoing it.  I don't beat myself up for missing a workout and I maintain a pretty good balance in the rest of my life.  At the same time I LIKE time to myself and not interacting with others so the long rides let me (mentally) unwind.

Even then, there might be something that tips you over the edge into mental burnout.  Cold weather did it for me at Tahoe.  I didn't want to go near my bike for a good six months after that race.  So I understand where you're coming from.  We see a lot of discussions about proper recovery and taper being key to building your engine.  People sometimes forget to give themselves some mental recovery too.

Its funny, I am watching a friend go through this now.   This is his first year in triathlon, and did his first 70.3.  That's fine, but next year?  At last count he had FOUR half ironmans and a full on the calendar.  I hope it doesn't happen, but I see a potential huge crash and burn(out)

When I started I raced a Lot, but it was mostly shorter races.   Took four years to get to IM, then another 5 to get to #2.   Easy for this "lifestyle" to take over any other semblance of life.  

So much to say First of all, I love you man. I always have {MELON PRESS}

Nearly everyone who's posted in this thread has been a tremendous teacher, mentor, example to me.

Sometimes I only find my way by losing it. Sometimes I find that there are many wonderful ways and crappy ones too. It's OK to be a guinea pig and experiment and screw up.

No one thing is that important. No one person (including me) is that important.

I come from a celebrity family. We grew up in the public eye. Triathlon is one of many parts of my life. In our family, all of us do it all, all the way. And we've all paid very dearly for that. Every day, I try to treat it as one day, and only do what I can and still stay relatively sane and healthy. I'm terrible at it. But I'm aware of that and I'm getting better.

You guys are awesome and so supportive.  One thing is for sure, I'll be hanging out here more frequently because BT is such a great tool to stay involved and more importantly focused.
I mentioned it a little above, but one of the key things that finally brought me back was staying connected to the many great friends I've made over the years in our local Tri community.  Not a one of them has said a negative word to me, and have been nothing but encouraging.  It was a Facebook post where one of them tagged me and invited me to join them at a race next year that was the final catalyst to get me back off the couch.

I don't know if it was a pride/ego thing, or just a competitive thing, but that first year was crazy for me.  I was so mad because I couldn't find a race every single weekend and signed up for everything I could.  It's almost like I had to show off and prove how fit I was to everybody.  I'm sure I can search back here on BT and find several posts about me telling you all how awesome I was.  lol
Sadly, there was likely nothing in the world anyone could have done or told me back then that would have made me do otherwise.  So, I guess it's more about planting seeds and hoping that people catch themselves before they get too burnt out, or at the least minimize the "break" on the back side as much as possible.

It helps me to plan a break even if I don't think I need it.  A non-race vacation is great.  But even if you can't take time off work, plan some things other than training for a couple weeks or a month.  Get out, have fun, call those friends you neglected when you were training.  I did a little jogging here and there but no scheduled workouts.  And when I get back to it, I'm more focused again.

I am actually going through this now.  2014 was supposed to be a "fun and easy do what I want" season, I ended up racing more than almost any other year, starting with an April 70.3 and ending with a November marathon.  Now I am in that "limbo" space where I am learning how to do things not tri related, but also not getting down on myself for losing fitness/getting fat/not doing that fall half marathon........ etc.   It's only been about 10 days and I'm a bit stir crazy, but I need to learn how to do this.  In previous years the only breaks were of the forced injury breaks, which is even worse. 

I think that is the most important part - it doesn't have to be triathlon, it doesn't have to be super achievements all the time. Just finding something that works in the context of your life that makes you happy - that makes you feel like you're accomplishing what you want, that is keeping you moving - that's the main part. 

Triathlon is awesome because it gives you goals and a purpose to work toward but life continues after a race- but then a race comes and goes so how do you build an active life that persists? I think the answer is slightly different for each person.  What drives you on will also change over time ...

There's something zen about this discussion