I don’t know what it is, I really don’t, but for the second consecutive Ironman Training season, something fantastically bad has happened at the worst possible time on the longest ride of peak week, and has challenged my resolve.

Last year, I got about 20 miles into my longest ride and had my front tire perforate straight down the middle, essentially shearing into two strips of tire.  I haven’t even heard of such a thing happening, but it happened to me!  I sat at the bottom of my first major climb, thinking for a few long minutes.  I knew I had the fitness to bail on the ride and still be fine for the race, but there was something about the longest ride and my thought process at the time that made me decide that giving up was not an option.  I called my girlfriend and asked her to bring my spare wheel, changed it out in a parking lot, and continued for another 80 miles.

Today, I went for the same long bike ride, and made it about 60 miles in to what I expected to be a hundred-mile bike ride.  My rear derailleur had been behaving strangely all ride (slipping out of the middle gears, not reaching the easiest gear at all, etc) but these are generally symptoms of an adjustment issue.  It’s something I usually fix myself with the right tools.  Besides, I had decided to take the bike in for a full tune-up after the ride, and I noted with a certain amount of smug pride that I would have finished a hundred mile ride with no access at all to my easiest gear.

The morning had started out challenging, with cold temperatures and periods of light to medium rain.  The headwinds were picking up too, but I was on my last loop of the “lollipop” route I was taking and was close to turning for home.  I was cold and wet and tired, but determined to finish.  As I pressed into the wind, I went to shift to an easier gear and heard a snap, followed by a sickening thunk as my rear gear dropped all the way into the lowest, hardest position.  I attempted to shift, only to be met by no resistance at all.  I simply could not shift at all, and between the headwind and limited gearing, it was like pedaling through molasses.

I slowed down, not wanting to stop entirely, and established what had happened.  I saw that my shifter conduit was pulling away from the shifter, completely frayed and torn at the end.  I vainly reached down and pulled at the cable, hoping to somehow influence the shifting manually, but it was no use.  My ability to shift was completely gone.

I pulled to the side of the road to reassess.  There was no way to perform any sort of in-field repair.  Normally I would adjust the derailleur’s screws to at least put me in a more comfortable gear, but my bike tool was recently confiscated by the TSA (I know, I know… “and you didn’t replace it?“).  I have to say that this challenge was a lot more disheartening than the split tire last year.  I couldn’t realistically call for help, I couldn’t make things any easier, and home was a long, long way off, over numerous hills and into a punishing headwind.

I had told myself going into the ride that I would not quit, no matter what– but I hadn’t expected this.  Even if I could push on in the lowest gear, I knew I would suffer for at least two hours just to take the most expedient way home.  I thought back to last year, and drew on that experience.  I thought about the women I am training/training with, and how I would never want them to give up in a similar situation.  I thought about all of the friends that I’d lost in the past few years to cancer and to accidents.

I’m sort of a romantic– I think about things in epic and maybe silly ways sometimes, and I’m often a little embarrassed to share the way I think about things with others for fear they would think I was juvenile or naive somehow.  But here’s what I said to myself in that moment:

If you can breathe, you can fight.

I thought about all the people who would laugh at my silly problems, or would give anything to be able to walk or ride on two legs, to have shelter, to have regular meals, to have health and safety and opportunity.  That sure put things in perspective.

The rest of the ride doesn’t really matter.  It was almost two hours of maximum effort, aching legs and chest, and wasn’t any easier than I expected it to be.  What matters is, I got home, and I got there under my own power. In retrospect, the 90 miles I did today give me more satisfaction than the hundred I had planned could ever have given me had they gone off without a hitch.

To those I have been helping to train: Nobody can stop you but you.  I don’t care if the race takes you 12:00 or 17:00 or even 17:05.  I don’t care if you get swept off the course (not that I expect that to happen to any of you).  I don’t care if you are the last person out there, or where you place in your age group.  As long as you fight to the very end, you will have made me so, so proud.

Training:  Going well.  Very well, actually.  My diet is locked in and I am flirting with being within ten pounds of an acceptable race weight. Given the volume of training in the next six weeks if I can just stick with it and eat mostly-right I should be at or below the weight I was for Vineman.  So, good for that, but I sure waited until the last possible second to settle down and do everything right.  Oh well, maybe IM Canada will be the race where I do everything right.

I’ve been making all my swim workouts, again just in time.  I have my distance almost to where it should be at this point, and I feel confident that the swim leg is going to be okay, though maybe not quite as fast as Vineman.  Biking is pretty good, I’ve been avoiding the mistakes of the past by tagging along with anyone I can find who is riding on Saturday mornings, waiting until they finish, and then going out for my remaining workout.  So far I’ve only had to do 4 or so hours on my own.  This weekend I’m supposed to join a group, but it’s also supposed to rain.  There’s a fair possibility I’ll be out there doing 5 hours in the rain and cold on my own.  Boo.

Life: Some parts good, some part bad.  Got a promotion at work, but also got my debit card info stolen and some crankster ran up a bunch of charges on, I shit you not, Wal-Mart and online pornography.  God damn it, if you’re going to charge pornography to my card at least have the decency to share the login and password.  Assholes.  An interesting revelation I’ve had is that busyness is not an excuse for not doing your workouts.  In fact, I’m busier than I have been in years (with no signs of letting up) and I’m more disciplined than I was in the last few months when things were calm.  No excuses.

Travel and Toys: I got a new camera with the reasoning that if I couldn’t justify it when I’m flying halfway across the world to one of the most beautiful countries on earth, I could never justify it.  So, I am now the proud owner of a Canon EOS 60D and a variety of nice lenses.  I’ll spend the rest of the training time practicing and hopefully return with some worthwhile shots from NZ.

I came dangerously close to buying a tri bike last weekend.  There were some great deals on 2011 models of a bike I lusted after over the last year, but with the promotion and my taxes I might be able to swing the next model up… so I waited.  But I whined a lot while choosing to do the right thing.

I want to get a bike soft case and maybe arrange for a rental car in New Zealand (wassup, left-side drivers?), but some dick spent all that money on frozen dinners from Wal-mart and German Midget porn or something.  Sigh.  Maybe next week.

I’ve always thought that the image of the new year as a diapered baby was a silly one, but as I spent a long time alone with my thoughts yesterday, it started to grow on me.  When a baby is born, they’re the physical embodiment of untapped potential.  They’re all promise, all possibility, free from baggage.  Nobody has told them what they can’t achieve yet.  They are all can.

To my friends starting their training for their first Ironman this month, I hope that you’ll think about that, and let yourself be brand new.  Give yourself permission to let go of all the hard times you’ve had in the past, and approach this like you approach anything you’ve never done before– by putting one foot in front of another.  You’ll move slowly at first, then you’ll walk, then you’ll run.  And before you know it, this thing will be done.

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own.  And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

Part of doing what you’re setting out to do is letting go of all of your notions of how this should feel.  It’s not going to be like the races you’ve run.  It’s not going to be like the training you’ve done.  Today, you are brand new.  It doesn’t matter that you’ve struggled just to finish a Half Ironman or a marathon in the past.  Having been lazy, or eaten too much, or having been told by someone that you couldn’t possibly finish an Ironman– those are all the problems of someone else– someone who is gone now.  Today, just go out and handle today.  Tomorrow, do the same.  Once you’ve strung enough todays together you’ll look back and find that where you were and where you are are very different places.

One of the things I struggle to explain to people about Ironman training is the many things you will do and see that, had you not had the courage to say, “I can,” would have been missed entirely.  Before your training is over, you will come over a hill on a run and find yourself among a pack of deer, and they won’t run away as your draw near.  You’ll ride up a foggy mountaintop and experience a moment of absolute awe when you break through the other side and see a city sprawling below you.  You’ll run through the inky black of morning and stop to watch the sun come up in a moment of perfect poignancy.  If not you, who would have been there to witness those things?  Where would you have been had you not had the mighty courage to say, “I can?”

You will go to the unseen places.  You will see the unseen things.  And if you let them, they will touch you and stay with you in a way you will never forget.

I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
’cause you’ll play against you.

All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance
you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike
and I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.

You will experience exhaustion and you will press on.  You’ll feel frustration and pain, and you will press on.  You’ll want to cut it short, or stay in bed, or spend time with your neglected loved ones.  You’ll feel the aching, empty, lonely feeling that catches you when you least expect it.  You’ll grind and walk and trudge and stroke through gritted teeth and brimming tears.

And you will press on.

You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

Until, at last, there comes a day where you simply cannot make it work.  In spite of being all can, you just can’t.  You can’t get out of work in time, or the conditions are unsafe, or for one of a million reasons there simply aren’t enough hours in a day.  And that will be okay too, because tomorrow will still be another chance.  Tomorrow may be the next perfect moment.  Someone has to go out there and bear witness to the awesome sight of life happening in the unseen places.  Don’t let yourself hang on to what you couldn’t do today when you still have a chance to do it tomorrow.  Success at what you are doing isn’t measured in miles behind you– it’s measured in days done, and done well.

And if you’ll believe me, just a little bit, it’s measured in the many sublime moments you keep inside that would have gone unnoticed without “I can.“

So…
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!

You are all so different in character, experience, athleticism, and intensity.  And yet, I am filled with absolute certainty that at the end of this, they’ll be calling your name and cheering you on and you sprint, stumble, roll, fall, crumble, crawl, weep or walk across the finish line.

Because today is a new day.  And today, you’re all potential.

And I believe in you.

Here is the whole year, distilled into one chart.

Somewhere along the way, in the last two weeks, though, in spite of work is actually at an all time high stress-wise, I have been completely diligent in my workouts. I guess my subconscious caught up with my conscious and realized that they both will be doing Ironman New Zealand in nine weeks, and that it was probably time to get serious. To go along with that, my eating has been absolutely spot on for the first time in months, and I’m ever so slowly inching back down towards an acceptable race weight. If I just buckle down and stay faithful when it comes to both my workouts and my eating, I will be just fine for Ironman NZ.

Yesterday, I booked my accommodation for the race. I’ll be staying at The Bayview Wairakei Resort in Taupo, which is about four miles directly up the road from transition. My original plans had been to stay at a motel about two blocks down the road (great for collapsing post-race!) but when this place became available just this week for exactly the same price, the larger room, better environment and service, and all-round nicer experience was just too tempting. I can rough it with the best of them– I’ve camped a lot, stayed in hostels all over Europe, Turkey, and North Africa, but when it comes time to race, I want comfort.

I’m going to do some planning for activities leading up to the race, and maybe I’ll detail some of that here. At least, I actually have something interesting to talk about rather than just the drudgery of work and soldiering through some pretty boring workouts. I’m riding and running long and starting to “click in” more than I have been in the past few months, and the race is becoming more and more real.

I’ve also begun laying out the training plans for Ironman Canada. At last, I’ll be training with a group of good friends and loved ones, so the occasional feeling of melancholy as I tough out a long workout will be gone, replaced by some great, fun company.

I’ll try to post tomorrow to cover the exercise totals for the year (a tradition borrowed from my sister’s annual posts doing the same)– otherwise, I’ll get to that on the first of the year.

This is where it gets good again.

Whoops!

I signed up for the 30th Anniversary Ironman Canada, to take place August 26, 2012. I’ll be racing alongside my sister, my girlfriend, and about two dozen close friends! This sounds way more fun than doing it all on my own!

The Main Event

Vineman was a hurricane of chaos, despair, frustration, and disorganization until the literal moment the gun went off, followed by nearly fourteen hours of picture perfection.  That’s not to say that I was anything but a fair-to-middling triathlete– I wasn’t.  That said, all the pieces fell into place for just one day, and I raced the very best race I could have.

Pre-race:

I drove up to Windsor on Friday, and went straight to Windsor High School.  Windsor HS is the site of T2 and race registration.  I attended the first of the hourly race info meetings and spent the obligatory thirty minutes dutifully listening to a lecture on the evils of drafting, headphones on the run course, and other basic Triathlon no-nos, and then sprinted to the next line– the extremely long registration line.  All of the line-waiting aside, I felt that the pre-race rigmarole at Vineman was a smooth and relatively painless experience.  I moved from line to line, picking up my race numbers, my timing chip, and my special needs bags.

Though it is the oldest full-distance event in the continental United States, Vineman is somewhat no frills when it comes to giveaways and schwag.  It’s a contrast to Silverman, where before you even hit the starting lne, you’re already the owner of a fancy tri bag, water bottle, visor, playing cards, lip balm, and tons of delicious nutrition.  Vineman instead provides you with the bare essentials you need to compete, and a shirt.  They would later make up for this somewhat with an excellent medal and a finisher’s shirt, but other races definitely do a better job of supplying you with fun schwag.

After getting all checked in by about 1:30, we checked into the Hampton Inn in Windsor, which did a fantastic job of making the triathletes feel welcome.  They provided rags for our bicycles, printed directions from the hotel to each transition, and cool washcloths and water bottles after the race.  Even if the lodgings hadn’t been convenient and clean, this kind of customer service is exactly the kind of thing that would bring me back to stay at the Hampton Inn again.  We went out and saw “Cowboys and Aliens” in a nice cool theater, hit up the Applebee’s with my aunt, uncle, and cousin for dinner, and crashed early, dozing off to the sound of random television programming.  Even though I should have been, I wasn’t nervous at all.  I’m usually inventorying and re-inventorying my gear the night before a race, but I just trusted that I had packed properly and went to sleep.  Plenty of time in the morning for that.

Race Morning:

I woke up at 4:30 AM, and scarfed down a pastry even though I wasn’t very hungry.  It took a little longer than I expected to get out of the hotel, but I still had tons of time to get to T1.  I followed the directions provided by the hotel, which turned out to be a scenic 16 mile tour of Sonoma County backwoods roads.  I found a parking spot about a half mile from transition with a little over 45 minutes to spare before my wave went off.  A little closer to the wire than I usually like, but still plenty of time!  I pulled my bicycle out of the car, pumped up the rear tire, and…

Disaster!  As I crouched next to the tire, it erupted with a sickening pow and my stomach sank.  I hadn’t even begun to evaluate the tire and I already knew that it was no longer usable.  Tires don’t make that kind of sound and end up back on the bike.  This was no exception– there was a half inch long puckering wart along the sidewall of my rear tire, and I had just replaced that tire two weeks and a few hundred miles ago.  I began to sweat as I realized that I was in the middle of the Sonoma back-country, at 5:45 in the morning, with no money or credit card, and no spare tire.

I thought long and hard on my last long training ride about what could come up in the race that would make me quit– that thinking was brought on by the loss of my last rear tire an hour into the ride, and my subsequent call to get my spare and continue for another five hours.  I had considered all the mid-race elements that might make me want to quit, but I had never considered not even making it to the start line!  I thought about all the friends who had expressed their support for me– all the people who promised to track me throughout the day– everyone who told me I could do it– and realized that the only thing more disappointing than a Did Not Finish is a DNS:  Did Not Start.

There’s a triathlete saying goes, dead last beats “did not finish,” but “did not finish” still beats “did not start.”  I put the ruptured tire back on my wheel, reattached it, and walked purposefully towards the line.  I was going to start this race, even if it meant taking a leap of faith and hoping that I could take a long T1 and find someone to give me a charity tire.  Luckily, there was a bike tent near the entrance to transition, and I was able to purchase the one spare tire they had with someone else’s credit card.  I watched anxiously as the bike mechanic worked for fifteen straight minutes to get the tight tire on, knowing that such a tight fit was likely to make it very difficult for me to change the tire if anything else went wrong.  I watched the time tick away until I had less than ten minute before the start of my wave.  At last, my bike was good to go, and I raced off down the hill and into transition, apologizing and nudging shambling spectators, including my own family, out of the way.  I ran into transition just as my own wave began to get into the water and warm up.  My heartrate picked up yet again when I realized that my age group was at the far end of transition, many, many rows away, and through a throng of foot traffic headed the other direction.  I continued to nudge, beg, plead, and even complain as I tried to make my way to the now-full bike racks for my wave.  It took me another several minutes to find a place to cram my bike, and I unpacked while a volunteer bent down to mark me as I worked feverishly to take off my wetsuit, get marked, pull it on again, and throw the few items I needed for the bike down on the ground.  It was too late to find family to take my tri bag– I had to ask my Uncle and Aunt, who were volunteering, to smuggle it out of transition.  As I sprinted to the waterfront with my cap and goggles in hard, it occurred to me that I didn’t actually remember pulling my nutrition, spare tubes, lip balm, and GPS out of my bag.  I might very well get out of the water and find that my bag had been carted away along with most of my essentials for the bike.  As I pushed through a crowd of onlookers at the waterfront, I heard it… AAAAaoooo! The airhorn sounded and I watched my wave begin to swim from 30-40 meters away.  I dashed over the sensor pad, indicating my cap color wordlessly to the officials and I dove into the water, pulled my goggles down, and submerged in the water to a feeling of…

The Swim:

…calm.  I am far from the world’s most competent swimmer, but I’ve worked hard to improve things, especially this year.  I’ve always recognized that calm swimming is fast swimming, and that beautiful swimming is calm swimming.  I had been conditioning myself for days to see the race as a pleasurable glide through the water rather than the maddening hockey game it often becomes.  Once I hit the water and began to move, I instantly felt calm, relaxed, and good about the day.  Whatever happened, I made it to the start and I didn’t let anything stop me.  If I could make it to mile 1, I could make it to mile 140.

I head out to the swim, trying desperately to catch my wave.

The water was warm and comfortable, and I immediately settled into a smooth, extremely easy stroke.  I didn’t know how I was going to feel after 140.6 miles, but I had a pretty good idea of how bad I could make myself feel after 2.4 if I didn’t take it smoothly and easily.

Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

I later joked with my family that I could mark the passage of time in the water because every five minutes, a new color of asshole would be punching me in the head.  Though annoying, I wasn’t hurt and I mostly found it funny to have people sprint by me, only to see them standing in the shallow water at the next turn, out of breath as I glided slowly by.  I knew, given the disadvantage I started out with, that I could not expect to be in the top half of my swim– but I was certainly making my best effort not to finish last.

In the end, I came out of the water after 1:29 feeling rather better than I usually feel after speeding my way through half the distance.  I ran up the little hill into transition and stopped dead in my tracks– where in the hell is my bike? I realized that I had no time before the race to take stock of the landmarks, and had no idea where I had left it.  There were enough people still out on the swim that I was looking at an ocean of racked bicycles, many of them close enough to my own that I wandered for a full two minutes from row to row before I found my own.  I laughed a little when I found mine and realized that one of the other athletes sharing my rack had pulled my chain completely off towards the outside.

Well, at least he didn’t snap it completely.  I took a moment, put the chain back on, and slowly stepped into my cycling shoes.

The Bike:

Heading off into the bike.

Though still by no means extraordinary, cycling is where I feel most at home, and I felt best about completing this leg of the event.  With that said, being most proficient in cycling is a double-edged sword.  Because I can give a little more effort, I tend to.  I resolved early on in the bike to give no more effort than I needed to maintain a liveable pace, and never push so hard that I felt any sort of burn in my legs.  Every time we spun up a roller, I dropped into a gear two rings easier than I needed to in the name of keeping things smooth, and having nice, fresh legs for the run.

As the bike continued, I sensed the impending presence of the infamous Chalk Hill.  Chalk Hill will break your heart on the bike, they said.  If I had come with no hill training or expecting a dead-easy ride, that might have been true.  As it was, however, Chalk Hill was no more difficult at mile 100 than it was at mile 40– I could have broken myself on it if I was trying to be a tough guy– but mile 40 on the Ironman isn’t the place for tough guys– real tough guys are still running at mile 140.

Compared to many of the training rides I had put myself through, Vineman’s course was relatively easy. As easy, that is, as any 112 mile bike ride surrounded by 2.4 miles of swimming and a marathon can be. Still, the course was a great mix of rollers that reward you with a bit of a downhill every time you start to build up a little tension in your legs. I see a huge opportunity to punish oneself on this ride by trying to be a hero, but with my pacing strategy it was more reward than punishment.

The ride wore on, and I did start to feel some genuine discomfort– but not in my legs.  It was my feet that were killing me.  I think I had my cleats set a little too far forward, and I could feel the numb, “buzzing” sensation in the meaty bit behind my big toe every time I drove down my left pedal.  To combat the discomfort, I began to stop at each aid station, once every 10-20 miles, and take a short bathroom break.  Those few moments off the bike were enough to reinvigorate my legs and feet– long enough, at least, for me to make it into T2 with a bike time of roughly 6:45.

I walked my bike into transition– I did have all day, after all– and sat in front of my transition area. I preemptively foam rolled my IT bands (yes, I brought my roller to transition!), took some salt pills, massaged my feet, and slowly put on my run shoes. I knew that I had many hours still ahead, but that two extra minutes in transition could mean big rewards in the rest of the day. I took another bathroom break and jogged slowly out onto the run. Could I have have started at a faster pace? You bet I could have. But I wasn’t about to let all the reining myself in on the bike go to waste.

The Run:

A Marathon is 26.2 WHAT?

I had just done a 8.5 mile run with friends last weekend, so I knew exactly how to pace things and feel good on the way back– well, I knew how to pace them in the absence of an entire Ironman beforehand, anyway. Still, having just done a loop with slightly slower running partners was a fantastic lesson in why my limits would be when fatigued on race day. The Vineman run course is a good mix of exposure to the run, rolling hills, and shady spots. It is also exceptionally well supported with five aid stations in each direction, for a total of thirty possible rest stops on the run.

I’m not ashamed in the least to say that I stopped at each and every opportunity– that’s right, all thirty of them. Just as with the bike, I knew that the secret to my holding strong through the run was the microbreaks that refreshed my legs and my spirit. I chatted with the volunteers, I thanked them for being there, I tested each and every food choice, and I soaked in the race day atmosphere. I can honestly say if given the opportunity to take a full hour off my time, but having to miss all the interaction, I wouldn’t take the time. You only get one first Ironman.

I took the first two loops at nearly the same exact time, but I knew that my time was coming. There was walking in my future, and if I let myself do it for too long, there was a darn good chance that I wouldn’t get going again. By mile 18 my quads were burning and the first step transitioning from walk to run sent a searing pain up my back. I’m making good time walking right now, do I really have to run again?

Yes. Yes you do. I crept towards the finish line and the possibility of going under 13 hours slipped away, but the chances of breaking 14 were very real. Although I never really focused on time during the day, with two and a half miles to go and 27 minutes to do it, I was determined to try. I ran the uphills, I ran the downhills, I ran the flats. I ran through the pain and as always, the thoughts of all the emotional moments that got me started in endurance sports, in charitable causes, and in training for an Ironman flickered across the forefront of my imagination.

I thought of my long-gone baby sister, my girlfriend’s grandpa, of two dear friends who died in the past year– one only two weeks ago. I had thought of them all recently, and of how lucky I am to have the chance to wake up, and put on a pair of shoes, and experience the ups and downs of being a real, live person. I live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, I have two fantastic puppies, loved ones, I eat and live better than so many people have a chance to. How massive and how insignificant this race was at the same time. The magnitude and depth of my own problems were put in perspective in every way by this race. All my problems, all my ruptured tires, and punches in the head, and sore feet and burning quads are all reminders that I am alive– that I have the opportunity to do good and bring change and comfort to people’s lives.

And then, I was there.

The most beautiful sight of the day.

Vineman wasn’t a day. It wasn’t even a month or a year. It was a big, fat reminder of how lucky we are to do something so frivolous– something so challenging– something so ultimately pointless and poignant– and by standing for something, by hanging in there, the petty and the self serving fall away, and you’re reminded that to be an Ironman isn’t about the number of miles you’ve traveled, but about the number of miles you’ve managed to hold on. If you’re especially lucky, it’s about the number of minutes you managed to help someone else hold on. It’s not about the minutes you took off your time, it’s about the minutes you put in to it.

Vineman. Ironman. The first post I ever wrote in this blog was about how some people don’t call you an Ironman if you don’t buy into someone’s brand. Well, I don’t care what kind of “man” I am, so long as I’m a good one.