the ironman journey is BS

to get straight to the point life has sucked.  i have lost my mojo.  nothing has felt right.  i miss molly every day.  as mentioned in my previous blog i had signed up for ironman western australia and was training with a squad.  that lasted eight weeks. i hated it.  i did not like the programme and i just didnt click with the group thing.  i dont think one programme can be used for a squad with a number of athletes all with different levels of ability and fitness.  what i hated the most was having the long run on sunday after riding long on saturday.  there was no progression in the volume of the training sessions.  we jumped from running 80 mins to running 21k the following week.  i hated that everything constantly changed from being time based to distance based sessions and back again.  when i said i could not run long (and i am talking 30k long) after a hard long bike and brick session the day before i was told that i should walk instead.  i am not fucking walking anything.  i dont intend to walk the marathon on the day so i am certainly not going to walk during training.  so i pretty much hated everything.  when i quit the squad people assumed i had quit altogether.  when they realised that i was still going to do the race the assumption changed to that i will just flunk out on the day and will be happy to make it to the finish line anyway i can.  what the fuck is wrong with people.  yes the first eight weeks of training has not been good and nowhere near close to being consistent.  BUT i am now working really hard at getting things back on track.  my swimming has been the most consistent than it has been in a long time.  i have been riding hills  more and i think my bike will be on par to last year.  my only concern is running.  i am behind with this but if i can string some good long runs together over the next six weeks i might be okay.  i just need to be consistent.  what i do have in my favour is my ironman base. i hope over the next six weeks my fitness starts to really build and get back to my previous level.  

one thing i have learned from this experience is that when you make a plan stick to it.  i never intended on doing busselton this year and signing up for it was wrong.  i should have taken the break. i needed it.  not only the break from training but i needed time to deal with molly dying.  the whole process was horrible, heartbreaking and soul crushing.   people talk about the ironman journey and that you will experience things so challenging that you will be a changed person blah blah blah.  i think it is utter fucking bullshit.  like any process you embark on you learn from it and hopefully develop more insight about yourself as a person.  but nothing like some of the crap i read.  maybe i dont train hard enough or maybe i dont race hard enough.  i know this time around i have learnt that group training does not suit me, i love riding long on sundays and not saturday and that perhaps i have mistaken training consistently with training hard.  i will think more carefully before changing my plans but if this is my ironman journey i dont see how it is going to be life altering.  i know the race is going to be hard and maybe i will take myself to a place i havent been before.  like the long day in the rain at cairns.  still i dont think that was life altering either.  hyped up BS.  

so besides the ironman BS and sweet molly dog the other parts of my life are as follows.  work has sucked, my house is a mess and the garden a pile of weeds again.  i still havent spoken to my parents and it saddens me that life has been far less complicated without them.  my car has needed a wash and clean for the last three months.  my back is still painful and i also have tendinitis in my elbow.  i really would like to sleep for 8 hours straight without waking up.  i have a cat.  he is called ned or the nedster.  he has no balls as i got them cut off.  i got him because i thought casey would be lonely without molly.  but as it turns out casey is quite happy because molly was a very dominant dog and casey is now free to get more attention.   molly rarely ever barked.  casey barks all the time as she is the little guard dog.  whenever i left the house casey would bark for a good five minutes or more.  i never paid much attention to the bark.  as it turns out it was never casey who was barking. it was molly dog. there is no bark anymore when i leave home. 

The Nedster