All on my own

I realize now that this may only make sense to me, so I will try to pull all this together at the end. I understand that this sounds completely narsassitic and self important and perhaps it is. At the time when I thought this though, it was a sweet moment during a great run.

Triathlon and by extension Ironman, is that little peice of life that I allow myself to believe no one else can take credit for. Sure I am thankful to many and have lots of praise to give my wife and my support team but sometimes I feel that in my life I have become overshadowed in the 'big' areas.

When the history of my company is spoken by others, I will be not mentioned as having a crucial role in it though my partners and I would disagree. The credit for its success and rightly so will go to the two partners the rest of us support and prop up, the two who control the day to day management. And I love them for taking that stress upon themselves and love the position I have in the system. But when I am introduced to new employees its usually not as, "He is a partner (or owner)," but mostly, "He the auditor, don't piss him off."

When the history of my marriage is spoken, its Mistress who really gets the credit for keeping us together and rightly so; she relates better to my parents, she spends the most amount of time with our son because I work and workout longer than she; she is better at the day to day operation that is a family. And I love her for it and thank God everyday for bringing us together.

So when I think of all the 'big' areas in my life there is always credit that will be assigned to someone else for my success or continuation. Ironman is my own being, my own struggle to overcome. No one can take credit for my success or assign it to someone else, its already assumed no one will carry my failures for me.

When my personal history is spoken I will be assigned to groups of great people and family that helped me make the money I make, live in the beautiful house that I live in and be the stable family man that the outside world believes I am. But when they say, "ironman," and I hope they do, there is only one person that it can be assigned to for its success and thats me.

Then I have the responsibility to thank the creator, my family, my training partners and my business for all the support that I pulled or took from them on the road to ironman. But in that first spark of thought at the mention of the name, 'ironman' all thoughts will be on me and not that I was carried on the backs of greatness. I will be recognized for stroking all those yards, riding all those miles and running all those kilometers.

Postscript. I have re-read this a few times before posting and though completely self absorbed I hope you the reader will see this is a tale of giving myself permission to believe I am capable of my own success in the eyes of others and not dependent upon luck or being in the right place at the right time. Ironman Florida for me has been a 500 day personal journey to stretch my capacity and overcome my personal demons of only being known as a Common Man.