And so it begins...

Growing up in southeast Michigan, we had easy access to Cedar Point, an amusement park near Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie. Summers found us taking road trips or boating across the lake to spend a day or the weekend riding the rides until we could barely stand and we'd lost our voices. What fun!!

To this day, I love rollercoasters. The higher, the faster, and scarier, the better! I have zero desire to bungee jump or skydive or parasail, but find me an amusement park and I'll ride every rollercoaster at least once.

Let me be clear: My love of rollercoasters is strictly limited to the amusement park kind. Last week I experienced a rollercoaster of a very different sort. You know the one. The one that takes you on emotional highs and then drops you--BOOM--til you're at rock bottom. The one that finds you waking up feeling stellar and then yanks that rug out from under you mere hours later. The one that has you questioning if up is down and if left is right. This particular rollercoaster had me questioning exactly what I've gotten myself into.

The bummer news is that, all told, it was a fairly typical week. I wish I could point to an event, something that happened to explain the ups and downs. But everytime I reviewed the week, I came up empty-handed. I worked my usual schedule, had a great group of participants in the class I taught, hung out with Steve at home, met up with a friend for dinner, and got in (most of) my workouts. The only thing out of the ordinary is that my mom was in town visiting, and yet that's no longer all that unusual, what with her grandson (my nephew Dylan) here and all.

Despite all this "normalcy" I found myself waking up mad at the world, just wanting to lay my head back down and ignore the demands facing me. But drag myself to standing, I did, and once I did, magic happened. My mood transformed. I was excited to get back in the classroom for the day, to meet my class participants. I had a stellar swim one evening that was clear evidence that I will meet my Ironman swim goal. Other days the sequence of events was reversed: I jumped out of bed and threw on my running shoes, convinced it would be my best run in the history of the universe, and--lo and behold--it was!! I floated, strong and fast, thrilled to be running outside again. This euphoria carried me all the way to.......um, about noon? And then the soreness crept in. I hadn't properly stretched this morning, post-run. And I paid for it later. These days, the aches and pains take up residence in my lower legs and feet. When it's really bad, the simple act of walking becomes uncomfortable.  

Why do I do this to myself? Exactly what I wondered last week.

Because I'm not willing to give up my Ironman dream, I must accept these rollercoasters. Yes, I think this is the "new normal." This is the ride I'm on, the ride I've chosen, from now through June...and perhaps for a few weeks after, too. And even as I write all of this, I must re-admit that this ride is already one of the most fun I've taken.

As I decide how to close out this entry, I'm staring at a quote posted on my computer screen: "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did." I think that about captures it.