Cal.E.'s Korner

D.:  Cal.E.

is filling in for her youngest male kittne, Ralph

at The Kennel, and I am studying for a midterm exam. Consequently, I am offering an excerpt from my upcoming book entitled BEYOND THE THIRTEENTH MILE

This chapter is entitled : 

          THE MENTAL IRON MAN

Even volunteers at Ironman distance triathlons have trouble comprehending that the competitors are going to cover one-hundred forty point six miles in one day, (or about the same as going from Los Angeles, California to Tijuana, Mexico) and all under their own power.

"You guys – are nuts!" exclaimed the announcer, just before sounding the starting horn.

Actually, it's not that complicated. First, you put one arm in front of the other, then one leg, then one foot, and you don't stop until you're finished. And, no, it doesn't take the "rest of your life" to recover from competing in one either, contrary to the opinion of a physical therapist friend of mine.

I actually signed up for and completed a fifty-mile run a mere eight weeks after having completed my first Ironman distance triathlon, even though my heart rate was elevated above one hundred for a solid week after completing the Ironman distance triathlon. I had a good excuse to eat steak or whatever I wanted to eat then. I needed protein to recover!

 I actually beat the time limit in the fifty-mile run of twelve hours, my only goal, by over twenty minutes. I knew that my legs wouldn’t recover enough to set an aggressive goal. I don't recommend doing this, though. That’s mainly because I wasn’t able to escape injury. I hyperextended my left (good) knee after stepping in a mud puddle at mile forty-four and getting it stuck. Pulling it out with both arms was difficult, and that hyperextended my knee, which left me six miles to “run” on one semi-healthy leg. This would seem to be unavoidable, since the run was held in a cold rain that lasted until the time limit expired.

Even though I beat the time limit, Nicole forbade me to attempt any more trail runs, because this course had caused me to injure each of my knees and to have minor surgery, six months later, on the healthy one. (No, it was done on me, so it wasn’t “minor surgery.” My definition of “minor surgery” is one that’s done on someone else, not me!)

Nicole’s concern was understandable. During one of the ultramarathons I attempted, I saw a man die. He’d had a pacemaker installed six weeks before the event and he didn’t allow the three month time period for adjusting to the device. I know from being a nurse that one must go back to the cardiologist three months after the device is installed to make necessary adjustments. This man didn’t do that, and it cost him his life. The best efforts of a CPR instructor and an M.D. who were participants in the event couldn’t prevent this, even though he‘d probably trained diligently for the race.

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We train for endurance events in our everyday lives. If you think about it, you do a "Mental Ironman" every day. You swim through your morning routine and later, through traffic, only to cycle through things at work that may or may not interest you. Then you probably run home in time to catch your child's soccer game or practice, or to go to that den meeting. Maybe you’d just like to get home in time to eat dinner with the whole family, for once. If you can find time to sneak in a workout, or read a book, or just sit and think for a short period, then I say, bully for you!

Let's face it, our harried, hurried lifestyles don't allow much room for slothfulness in this fast-paced century. That, in my opinion, has contributed greatly to the explosion in the popularity of extreme sports in the twenty-first century.

I’m D.C. Scot, and this has been just one average, ordinary, everyday person's account of his attempt to accomplish the (seemingly) impossible. The apostle Paul also had something to say about racing.

 “24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” 

I Corinthians 9: 24-25