Who said you'd 'never do an IM' but did? (Page 2)

used to say "those people are nuts!"

but finished my first oly last week, scheduled HIM in October whicH i am confident I will complete, the next thing would be an IM for me!!!......I know myself that after I accomplish the 70.3 I will not stop!!.......I want a Tattoo!!

Did a sprint one year at the end of summer, loved it.  Said I would never do an IM, that didn't last long, did IM AZ my first season! I must have been nuts! I was 50lbs overweight, had only done a sprint, no background in swimming, biking, or running. What the heck was I thinking!

Over that year, I lost the weight, got in the best shape of my life, forged great friendships, and pushed myself way beyond what I thought I could do.

I'm on my fourth season now and I still look back on that season, the training, all the races in preparation, and it was one of the best years of my life. 

If you're on the fence, hop over. It's worth it

-Dave

When I first started doing triathlons I had done many marathons and many bike century rides.  I remember saying to myself that JUST doing a marathon or JUST doing a century made me really really tired and sore and I couldn't even imagine trying to do them both on the same day.  So I guess I never really said I "wouldn't" do it.  I just didn't think it was conceivably possible.  I mean, a marathon would WASTE me for days!

And now I've done two IM's...I'm definitely in the camp that it isn't as hard as people make it out to be.  If you have an iota of perseverance you can do an IM.  I'm not calling it easy, but I think a large percentage of the population CAN do an IM even if they think they can't.

I watched Julie Moss on the Wide World Of Sports in 1982 and thought at the time that it seemed like an impossible dream. It took me 20 years to take up the sport and six more years to screw up the courage to enter an Ironman, but I finished ImMoo in 2008.

It wasn't pretty, but it was the ultimate triumph of a tiny bit of athletic ability and endurance combined with sheer stubbornness. If you don't break mentally, you can do it!

x2

I never said never in the first place.  IM distance interested me from the start.  Did my first one in 2006 when I was 40.  My 8th one is June 26th at IMCDA. 

Yes, it's not about the story or the tattoo (or the bike, for that matter).  It's about the enjoying the training, enjoying spending time with training partners, the satisfaction of individual accomplishment, the excitement of the race start, the agony of run mile 23 combined with the thrill of just a 5K left. 

Below is what I wrote about the finish of IMC 2009 when I had to sprint to make my sub 13 goal, which I thought I'd missed by several minutes.  This is what it's about.

Before long I was running past the cheers of my fellow JFTer’s on Lakeshore Drive, grabbing a drink at the last aid station and making the last turnaround to run past them again. That’s when I was stunned by Jill yelling “you can still make 13!” Thanks so much Jill for saying that, because although I thought I was running as fast could, I dug deep and found a little bit more.

I could hear the announcer Steve King saying something like “Let’s cheer everyone in for a 13 hour finish – 2 minutes to go!”  All I could do was run toward the finish line as hard as I could hearing him count down “90 seconds to go”, “less than a minute to go”, then “30 seconds”.  I passed three or four runners and the crowd was really cheering but I could barely hear them over the sound of my hammering breath and pounding feet.  My Garmin says I did the last quarter mile at a 6:57 pace with an average HR of 189 and a peak of 197, which must have been right as I entered the finish chute and knew I had made it.

I ran the last few yards with my arms overhead in victory, and broke the tape at 12:59:46, falling onto the catcher on the other side.  She got me standing and walking and I saw my fellow JFTer John Marquis just a moment later and screamed “I made it!”  I knew he was a finish line volunteer and I was so happy he stuck around after his shift was over.  Thanks John!   I also saw Theresa and Lana on the other side of the barricade and I was so happy that they had seen my “big finish”. 

http://brucemorgan.blogs.com/afc/2009/09/ironman-canada-2009-race-report.html

I might, rabbit, I just might...

Not sure, though.  I threw a HIM onto the end of my season this year, and can still recall the (totally awesome) butterflies waiting for the gun - "how is this going to feel?" kind of thing.  Then after doing it and immediately thinking it wasn't so long or hard, I wondered (wonder) what an IM is like.

Buuuuuut, having done HMs and full marathons, half is a whole lot less than half (I've always said a marathon isn't half over until you hit mile 21).  So, not sure about IM.

Also, in the post-mortem of this past season, those 10-15 hour weeks really cut into things that we've always done as a family (boating, fishing, whale watching, etc. - didn't do much or any of that this past year, as I was hammering along on tri's and the Better Half was training for a marathon - kids were busy, too, but I usually grab everyone and just go to the boat at least a few times no matter what).  So I'm not sure I would feel "good" about upping the training (or even that level again in the next couple years), if it cut out that family time in the next few years.

Once the kids are a bit bigger (another 4-5 years), then maybe.

I'll have to come back to this post then and re-read this! 

Matt

Did my first marathon this spring and after it I swore that I had zero interest in the IM distance, ever.

I'm doing B2B Full next week.

During the last half of the run of each and every one...

I think was going to keep my word since it's been almost a year since my last and DON'T want to do another...  But the last couple weeks, now that the weather is cooler here in Vegas, the idea of one crept into my head...

What I think is funny, is when I was training for 10k years and years ago, a marathon really seemed difficult/impossible.  My friend and I used to marvel/laugh at the idea of doing one AFTER 2.4 and 112 mile ride since both of THOSE seemed almost too much to handle.  Funny how feasible something get's as long as you slowly work at it.  Suddenly, you are there, doing it.

A year and a half later from posting this I finished IMAZ.  Funny looking back at this.

I got into endurance sport as a last dash hope to cling to my youth as I turned 40.  I signed up for a half-marathon on a whim, found a training plan, and started running.

Said I was going to be one-and-done with running after that. 

2 weeks before my first half-marathon, I was putting my credit card number in on Active.com registering for my second.  After that race, I said I'd never do a full.

A year later at that race as I crossed the finish line for the full marathon, I said I'd never do another. 

I'm 80-some-odd days away from the Disney Marathon... Which I'm running the day after the Half, and the 10K the day prior, and the 5K the day prior to the 10K.

So let's just say I'm not ever ruling out the possibility of doing a 140.6 race. 

In the back of my head I've wanted to do one for a long time, but even before I did my first triathlon I wasn't sure if I could swim well enough to do the full distance.  It wasn't until I took swimming seriously (and now ironically it's my favorite and best of the three disciplines) that I realized I could do an Ironman.  Then it became an issue of whether I wanted to commit the time, energy and resources to do one.  Finally did it in 2012 and then I said I don't think I'd ever do another one.  Ironically, I am signed up for IMWI in 2014 after missing all the fun in 2013.  Strange how that works.