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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

ironman number 3, being 50 and cancer

i will get the bad out of the way first.  molly dog has been having chemo for her skin lymphoma for the last few months.  before anyone thinks i am being cruel chemo does not impact dogs like it does humans.  there are very few side effects and unless i mentioned it you would not know.  there are a few things i have learned recently.  sometimes no matter how much you might want to change the outcome it is out of your control.  this is worse for me than it is for molly. she gets spoilt everyday and i get that little bit sadder.  i have come to realise that i have no idea how parents cope with sick kids or people cope with sick loved ones.  or how anyone copes knowing that perhaps there is nothing that will change their outcome either.  i find this very hard to process and these parents are amazing.  molly will always be very, very special to me and my heart will be broken when she goes but eventually i will be less sad and eventually i will go out and buy myself another dog.  what do these parents do ?  molly has scaley things all over her body but her fur hides it and it doesnt bother her.  she had a lesion on her tongue which freaked me out but that seems to have improved with her latest round of chemo.  fingers crossed.  this is just a battle to keep the disease at bay for as long as we can.  once molly no longer has a comfortable quality of life then we need to think about what is best for molly. it is so very hard seeing and watching how this horrible disease can bit by bit take away such a sweet and innocent creature.  bad god.

i was 50 a few weeks back.  it is a strange thing being this age but feeling like i am a lot younger.  in a few years i will start qualifying for aged discounts.  i find this very funny.  i bought myself a trek madone 6 series project one.  i picked it up the day before and i have only ridden it once.  the weather hasnt been great , i am still training for cairns and the wheels have to be swapped over for an upgrade.  i took it up into the hills and i love it.  worth every freaking penny.  as soon as i get back form cairns this baby will be in the hills alot more.

so for my birthday my sister and brother were awesome and made sure i didnt feel forgotten.  in actual fact the only people who did neglect to call or send me birthday wishes were my parents.  there is no simple explanation for this.  my family, like most, has its problems and is dysfunctional.  they didnt forget.  they chose not to call me.  this actually doesnt bother me and i wasnt surprised by it.  it is all the other crap that we have been forced to deal with that bothers me more.  i could set up a whole blog and talk about my shitty parents and the crappy childhood but there is nothing to explain the way they are and why they have always chosen to put themselves first every time.

on monday i fly out to cairns for my third ironman.  at the moment i am struggling with feeling confident about it. i dont feel like i have done any training AT ALL.  it is very strange.  i look back over my garmin and i know i have had some good sessions.  has my training been perfect ? no - not at all but i have trained.  my swimming is much stronger and my bike has improved and i am riding longer distances with a higher average pace. i havent felt as comfortable running so i am hoping that i will carry over some endurance from busselton.  i cannot go into this race with the same expectations as busselton.  it is a hilly bike course and the swim is exposed. there is every chance the bike will be into a headwind and if the conditions are not great it will be a very long day. the logistics have changed this year but i am staying at the same place and will again head over to green island for the open water swim.  it has been a long haul to get here but the plan was to challenge my self with two ironman distance races within six months.  i looked back over some old posts and on my 46th birthday i rode my first 100k at an average pace of 26 km per hour.  things certainly have improved.  i also wrote in 2010 that i thought it would be a good idea to go to cairns and do the ironman event for my 50th birthday.  i forgot i wrote that but here we are and the closer it gets the more excited i become.  

in the meantime i have signed up for ironman 70.3 mandurah in november and ironman australia in early may next year.  it is the 30th anniversary and a challenging course.  why wouldnt i want to do it ?


  



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