It’s hard to believe that it has been more than a year since the last time I posted on my own blog. Much has happened since the last post, I completed by 8th Ironman race in Cambridge, Maryland in September of 2019 and have since retired from the sport that I spent so much time doing.

I never thought I would see myself not being an active triathlete, but a combination of different factors all came together in early October 2019 that told me it was time to move on.

Let’s be honest, the training didn’t go well, life events got in the way, work was real busy, and basically life for me overall was changing. Excuses? Well, maybe, but it all wraps around the changes that were going on with me over the past year. I can’t say I didn’t write about them, I just didn’t write about them in public like I am now. If you don’t have a personal journal, you need one, its powerful.

The decision to retire from triathlon was due to a deep reflection I had about why I was doing the sport in the first place. If you take some time to read through this blog, you’ll see I became active in early 2000 (before the blog) after I had put on 25+ pounds and felt like a walrus. I decided to run my first marathon in 2006, namely the Steamtown Marathon in Scranton, PA. It was a challenge to my time since I had always exercised at lunchtime while working at CTE, it was convenient, I had a support group but the marathon changed all that. I now had to spend time on the weekends training.

After my first marathon, I was hooked, I found that I started to use exercise as a way to escape for awhile to just be with me. Some people use therapy, others use meditation, well I used running.

After 4+ years of running multiple marathons each year, I got used to being up and out early each day, before anybody got up. I also did a job on my knees and feet at the same time, and I knew I couldn’t continue running 50-60 miles a week and racing in this capacity. So in 2010, I decided to switch gears and do triathlon instead.

The years of 2010-2012 were full of sprint, olympic and half Ironman distance triathlons. This worked well for me as I could step up the distance, and take the pressure off my knees and feet. The bike is a great alternative cardio, and so is swimming, when you do it right. I still used the training time in the mornings and the weekends as an escape from reality, but I found I was doing it more and more, and I felt like I was escaping more than just reality. It felt like I was running away from things.

Once I started training for Ironman Louisville in 2013, it took life to a different level. I had a goal, a serious goal, that I knew I could achieve if I spent the time and the effort, and just did what I needed to do. I completed it successfully however it put me in a mode of truly escaping everything regardless of the impacts on my body, my family, my mind, my work … pretty much everything.

So over the years, I always made a goal of doing an Ironman every year, and in 2016, I decided to do 2 Ironman races (which was miserable) and then stepped down to one race a year after that through 2019.

The ironic thing I found in all my training and races over the years, was that I never got any better at the sport. I tried this approach, that approach, spent money on coaches and gear and training programs, but I never improved. It wasn’t that I didn’t put the time in, or put the effort in. I never missed a workout. The problem was that my mind wasn’t there anymore, or if my mind was there when I started, I wasn’t strong enough to sustain it. I feel like I had found a weakness.

Even knowing what I knew, for some reason I continued year over year, knowing how mentally grueling these events are, when really I only needed to complete one race to say that I did it. I always wondered why I continually beat myself year over year over year, taking time away from things I should have been focusing on in order to train. I was running away from something, sometimes I feel like I was running away from myself.

In 2019, everything in life fell apart for me, hence my lack of a real post all year. To be transparent, my marriage finally ended, my career was in question after I closed my own business, and I had the worst Ironman performance in my entire career.

Why did all this happen?

I lost focus and became afraid to face reality.

And since the last time I posted, i’ve begun to put my life back together in a positive way. Ironman isn’t worth the effort if you are not there mentally, nothing is. It is a long road to rebuilding, but the people I have in my life now are the deciding factor, and i’ve always said it, its the people you are with that make the difference. But you have to put the time in.

Over the past 7 years, i’ve pushed people away in many ways, and I lost the focus. Now that i’m retired, I intend to focus and emerge as a better person, and i’m proud to say it. There are times when you hit a proverbial bottom, and although it hurts in some ways, it was the opportunity to stop running away from myself because I was scared, and instead, recognize that fear is the opportunity to change.

But trust now that i’m back …