I'm Finished...

There's a large chunk of this video that's cut out. I bitch a bit about the course, about not being able to breathe, the wind, the heat. Then I go on to talk about how Kona is going to be my last full Ironman. I ended up taking all of that out. It all seems so trivial now, even as I was saying it. There was a distinct point somewhere in that run, where I was more defeated than I have ever been in my life, more broken than I have ever been, where it felt like something fell from me, like I let something go that would have otherwise tormented me for breaking down, for not being stronger, for not finishing higher. It's not here. Wasn't this morning, or last night. I don't think it will ever be here again. If that's true, then what I'm taking away from St. George is so big, it's nearly unspeakable. I've been gone for 3 days and it feels like months. Sometimes people ask me why I do what I do - any race, but in this case, a 2.4/112/26.2. Because without bullshit, a single day shows me exactly who I am. Because I cried a little bit for every person I saw finish that race, because I knew.

Here We Go, Almost...

3:27 in the AM and I've got my boy BF here, nearly running on repeat. Things are looking good. The world is outside, and waiting. The day is waiting. I feel like there's a dame outside my door, waiting to take my hand and show me everything that's anything. I'm going to make her wait for another hour because I'm primadonna, but also because when I walk out that door, the gloves have to come fucking off. And I need to breathe just a little bit longer.

Time To Pick A Fight...

Hey bro, how's it going? You cool? Cool. November 28th, yeah that was your day and that day wasn't so long ago, was it? Let me just come out and say something before I say a lot of other things, that we are all proud of what you did that day, your first Ironman. Congratulations. If that's what you want to hear, you can fucking have it. Take it, put it in your pocket, pull it out any time you need to jerk off by celebrating your own mediocrity. You'll never fool me. And seriously, if victory like that is victory you want to hang onto, please just dig a grave and put yourself in it. Stop distracting the world from the alarmingly short supply of genuine, inspired effort.

I am going to destroy you in every sense of the word. There's a race coming up in May, in St. George, Utah, another full Ironman. You're not running it anymore, I am. You were so afraid. You trained afraid, swam afraid, biked afraid, ran afraid. You were an embarrassment. You didn't understand what I fully do, that it's better to fall apart than fail to compete. I will die before I become you again. That's a promise.

You are the skin I've pulled off and left behind. Someday, and soon, you and all your shed friends will be sitting at a bar and you'll be pointing at me, telling them you used to be me, that I wouldn't be what I am without you. That'll be your story and I'll be charging on, always charging on. Tomorrow when those sheets are lifted, something new and brutal and beautiful begins.

Also, fuck you.