No Shortcut Today

I was in the hall of local movie theater a few months back. It was the usual red carpet with the overpowering smell of buttered popcorn. As I walked toward the movie I saw an advertisement for a Adam Sandler movie called "Click." On the poster was Adam holding a remote control. This particular remote gave him superpowers that included all kinds of cool stuff with one exception. It had a button for exercise. As we stopped in front of the poster everyone made comments about this button.

"Man, that would be great to just click a button and exercise would be done."

"That's what I need."

"Life would be so great without having to bother with exercise."

I was so taken by these comments. "What is wrong with you people?" I do not get it!

This may work for some people, but this is NOT for me. I live to train. I live to run. I live to bike. I live to swim. To me it's not about the race, its about the journey. I look so forward to the day when I can get out and run in the ice, snow, and rain. I love the thought of months and months of training. Months of wet clothes from running. Months of early day workouts. The feeling when you drop into bed and fall asleep instantly. I love everything about training. What is bad about it? What is bad about treating your body like this.

I want to see the people look at me like I'm crazy running in 5 degree weather. I want to smile at someone in a car while I'm soaking wet from the rain. I want someone to see me with steam coming off my head from the speed workout in the middle of Winter. I don't do it to show off. I want people to see the joy I feel when running, biking or swimming. I will be riding a BMC next year in Ironman Wisconsin. I'm so excited about this, but the bike does you no good without putting in hours, days, and months of work in the cold basement over the Winter. I want to see the sweat stains from the hours of riding. I want to see the mud on my shoes from running in the mud and snow. This is not work - this is fun. This is as good as it gets. I get such a rush from all this. I'm not sure why. I'm not sure how long it will last. I'm not sure about much. I'm just 100% sure that right now, I'm ready to start my journey to Ironman Wisconsin. I just want to tell you that I plan to do a few things before that day and LOVE every minute of it. There is NO way that I would use the remote, I don't want to miss this opportunity.

So until that day, I have a few things planned:

1) Run about 1500 miles 


2) Bike about 5000 miles


3) Swim about 200,000 yards

No remote needed. Just give me the joy of the mud, rain, basement, pool, ice, snow, peace, quiet, hail, thunder, gravel, blood, and anything else my 7000 mile journey will bring.