Mind Games

This weekend, I will be travelling to Oklahoma City for the USA Triathlon Long Course National Championship. It will consist of a 1900m swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 run. After taking the entire month of June off for recovery from the 100 miler, I jumped right back into triathlon training and decided to tackle some of the best triathletes in the States.

Just when I have started seeing the end of the 2009 season, my competitive nature has been sparked by a friend on Facebook. A guy I met from San Diego will be headed to Missouri for the first 100 mile run hosted in the state, and he asked why I wasn't doing the race. Now start the head games...do I have time to get ready after OKC? What will Lindsay think? Can I mentally take a break from racing? I haven't run anything over 16 miles since June. Have I lost my long distance endurance? Why do I insist on self-inflicted pain?

After knocking these questions around for awhile, I went to the blog of one of my favorite endurance athletes-David Goggins. Here's a bit of one of his posts that I have to at least consider when deciding on whether or not to do another hundred in 8 weeks:

One thing that always comes back to my mind that I am going to share with you is this..... What good does all of this actually do. What does running ultra's, biking, lifting, ect. What does it do for you? Where does it get you?
For me, the answer is this. It's not about what you do in life. It is about what you don't do. The truth is running has not got me anywhere in life. I don't enjoy it. I hate it really. It certainly hasn't made an income for my family. And it definitely takes up a lot of my spare time. So why do it then? Because I can. When I was running 100 mile races back to back weekends, people never understood. They thought I was crazy. They told me how injured I was going to get. But I didn't care. I still don't. Tomorrow is never promised to you. If I looked back on those times now and didn't do the Plain 100 because it was too soon after my other race, I would kick myself. Now I can look back and say. I'm glad that I did what I did when I could.
I am not saying that this is how everybody should be. What I am saying is that I believe everybody should push themselves to their limit. Whether it be in life or in sport. If not, you will wake up one day and your limits will have been determined by other factors. Health, family, work, ect. While you have it in your power to do something, do it. Don't wait until that opportunity gets taken from you. I know I'm not. I hope to see you somewhere on the road in June 2010.