Ironman Coeur d'Alene: The Aftermath

It has been exactly 1 month since I did this race. In that time span, a lot of thoughts have occurred to me, I've been asked a lot of questions, and I've asked myself many questions. Writing about my race experience has been very cathartic in helping me synthesize a very large amount of information, memories, and emotions. It has also given me time to reflect on what has changed, what has not changed, where I stand now, and where I suppose I'll go next. I have no outline for how this is going to go, so I apologize if it meanders, but here goes nothing...

I Did An Ironman......What Now?

Almost immediately after my race had concluded, basically the next day, as I was limping around the house, visiting the event site to return rentals, pick up pictures, peruse the Ironman store...the very first question that was in my mind was exactly that...."Ok....what now?" At first it was not an urgent question, but it has become more so as time passes. I knew very soon that I wanted to do another one, and I entertained thoughts of where I'd like to race for my next one, but also I know that it will have to wait until 2012 because of the time restraints I'll be placed under during nursing school. So unfortunately, I can't answer the "What now?" question with an answer that is a year and a half away. Back to the drawing board.

With no immediate answer to that question, I moved on to other questions I had for myself. Next on the list was "What does this mean?" Again, a noticeable lack of answers were what I came up with. Uh.....it means that I accomplished what I set out to do. Goooood....anything else? I was having to coax myself to open up to myself, which is weird. OOOH...I specifically wanted to achieve this goal before nursing school and especially before I turned 30! Very good, Danny! Gold Star! But for some reason, it doesn't mean what I thought it would mean. I mean, it's convenient that the bulk of my training for this year is done and now I can focus on school. And I guess being an Ironman when I turn 30 will be nice, but I wasn't actually worried about what I'd have to show for my life when I hit that milestone. Unfortunately, when looking for a larger meaning behind something, "It's nice and convenient" just doesn't cut the proverbial mustard. And life continued...

Two weeks after the Ironman I had another race scheduled. A 50k trail race(31 miles) to help keep my mind and body occupied for a weekend. This race was an amazing experience in itself, and I learned a lot from it. It will very likely receive its own race report at some point before the memories of it fade, but that is not the goal for this entry.

Coming out of that race, I realized a few things. My body was tired. I was injured, and I needed to take a serious break from training for probably 1 or 2 months. At first, this seemed like it would be an enjoyable reprieve from the constant training that had become typical of my life so far this year. Some rest and recovery for a tired and worn out body. My ankle hurt most of the time, regardless of what I was doing, and my hip was, for lack of a better term, "wonky". My massage therapist did some work on me and agreed with my assessment that I needed to stop before anything got worse so I could heal properly. So that was that. A couple months with NO races, minimal running, and easy cycling. I can still swim, but I never have time.

Unfortunately, this break from training has ended up being the exact opposite of enjoyable. At first this was perplexing, until I realized why I had started doing it all in the first place. Back in February 2009 I started running constantly because I was hurting emotionally and needed to literally run away from it all. It worked so well that I didn't actually ever stop doing it, and now I'm an Ironman. So here I am, having been forced to stop for basically the first time in 18 months, and I'm realizing that some of those old wounds have still been sitting there unhealed since the moment I ran away from them. As if I thought that if I just ignored them, they'd just go away.....son of a......so an extremely unexpected result of becoming an Ironman is that I've had to exorcise some old demons and deal with them face to face.....and I am happy to say that I have actually made tremendous strides in that department in the last few weeks!

So moving forward with this bizarre self-psychoanalysis, I have started relying on friends to help me try and see the bigger picture. I have told my stories to so many people in person, and even more by means of this blog. Reading your comments and hearing all of your praise has been so utterly satisfying, first of all. Many of you have asked me questions that I would never have considered on my own. A very good friend of mine, though, asked me the following ones:

"How are you living now? Or better said, how do you find it possible to go on in life after experiencing so much raw emotion and euphoria?"

Holy crap! They really hit the nail on the head with that one. I hadn't considered this point until I read this. What exactly is the emotional impact of being completely overwhelmed by feeling and sensation one weekend and then going back to humdrum life the next? Whatever this impact is, I cannot put it into words just yet, but I feel it down to my core. It's an incredible emptiness, a longing. An intense desire to have something, but I don't know what that something is. It is a feeling of loss. I apologize for the crass nature of the comparison I'm about to make, and especially to any mother who has ever felt this...but I feel like this is as close to post-partum depression that I will ever feel. But the more I think about it....I've been preparing for a year, and carrying this physical and emotional burden...all for one day in history, and now my soul can't face the reality that it's over. It somehow fits. In a sick and twisted sort of way. I read an article on my favorite endurance sports blog which described the pitfalls of "Post Race Blues" and it was absolutely spot on. It was good to know, however, that I'm not alone in feeling this way.

So I'm an Ironman, I don't know what that means, I don't know what is next, and I'm depressed for a handful of reasons.....great......anything else?

There sure is. And I'll tell you about it now.

Without going into too much detail, because to do so would require pages and pages of explanation, I'll just say that growing up I had some self-esteem issues. I turned a corner on those issues in my early 20's and have been getting better ever since to the point that people I've met recently refuse to believe that I was ever an insecure guy. However, people who knew me back in the day can attest to how far I've come.

This race taught me something rather shocking about myself. While I am a very happy and confident guy, those self-esteem issues are still buried down there somewhere and though largely ignored, they are alive and well. How did I come to this conclusion?

Looking back at my recent successes as a runner and triathlete, I've noticed that I change the way I look at a challenge after I've met it. Of course, that is completely normal....everybody does that. But I do it in a rather unhealthy way. Before I did my first half marathon, it seemed like such an amazing accomplishment. Afterwards, I was tired but at the same time I realized that it was not as big a deal as I originally thought. But then I realized that a full marathon really WAS an amazing accomplishment. Fast forward to that finish line. I finished my first marathon, and again I was tired, but with the same hindsight that it wasn't as amazing an accomplishment as I had made it out to be. Same thing for my first 70.3. Of course, the Ironman....this was different. The Ironman is stuff legends are made of. This is THE accomplishment...the race that, if completed, would give me that long-sought-after feeling of TRUE accomplishment and fulfillment. If I could finish this race, I would never again doubt my ability to conquer a goal and achieve what I thought to be impossible.

Right?............Right?........Bueller?

Not so fast. Even before I crossed the finish line, the moment the realization hit that I would succeed without a doubt, some ugly man in the back of my brain said the ugly words, "Well, this race really isn't THAT big of a deal."

And there it was....the ugly truth buried way down deep in my sub conscience. It will never matter how far or how fast I race. If I can do something, then it must not be that hard. I know this is the stupidest of backwards logic, but I have to claim it as my own. Until I can truly rid myself of my teenage insecurities, I will never feel the glow of ultimate achievement. Nothing will ever satisfy the naysayers in my brain who are convinced that I'm just not good enough.

So the good news....having identified that this is going on, I can expect these thoughts upon meeting future goals, and summarily dismiss them. Similar to expecting and embracing that I will get beat up during a triathlon swim, moving forward I will look for these thoughts to make their appearance, and as they swim by kicking and throwing elbows, I will hopefully remain unaffected and calm.

So I'm an Ironman, I don't know what that means or where I go from here, I'm depressed, and it really wasn't that big of a deal after all. Man, this sure is uplifting! If you were looking for inspiration, I'm sorry but there's not much to be found here. This is the ugly side of overwhelming success. How do you follow up one of the greatest achievements of your life? Many people sink under the burden, and I can easily see how. Many people become stagnant and directionless. Aside from one race, those words could easily describe the last month of my life. For me the experience has been a lot of post-race blues, feelings of being sedentary, feeling complacent about mundane daily activities, and a whole lot of anxiety concerning my nursing program which begins in 3 weeks. It has been harder than I thought possible after something that was supposed to make me uncompromisingly happy. But very simply, it is what it is.

So do I actually have any answers? Some. I'm an Ironman and it means the world to me in a way that I still can't quite grasp. Moving forward, my ankle will heal and at some point I'll be running again pain free. If my academic schedule allows, I'll sign up for races and complete them with very modest goals due to limited time for training. I'm living a day at a time, dealing with a disappointing level of excitement and satisfaction that life gives me compared to what I felt on June 27th, but I'm making the best of it all the same. I will try to keep my insecurities in check to the best of my abilities, but I won't get discouraged if they get the better of me now and then. However, one thing I do know is that I will never again look at an "impossible" challenge the same way. Today, qualifying for Boston, or qualifying for Kona, or running 100 miles seem impossible. Tomorrow, I may feel differently.

These answers all seem so vague and the exact opposite of definitive. Wasn't I supposed to learn something big, something all-encompassing? Some absolute truth about life that only Lebowski Achievers can ever know?

My answers all seem so unsatisfying, but in the process of writing this I finally figured out The Answer.

The Answer is that it never mattered what the answers were.

This entire exercise of self-examination, of finding those dark little places inside of myself...that is the answer. The journey towards becoming an Ironman was more important than the finish line at the end of the road. Much the same, the journey to self-discovery was more important than whatever I discovered in the end.

The journey is, and always has been, the reward.

I can't think of a time in my recent life when I've been so honestly self-reflective. To look at myself without bias or preconception has been a daunting, but fulfilling task and I am unbelievably thankful to those who have helped me get here intellectually and emotionally.

It means so much to me that you've all stuck with me from Day 1 of training through race day, through 4 incredibly long winded posts about the race experience, and through this horribly convoluted clusterfuck of armchair philosophy and Bush League psychoanalysis.

So, after all that...if you still want to know how it feels to be an Ironman? I suggest you do one, and then you can tell me yourself how it feels. I believe with all my heart that if you want you, you absolutely CAN do it.

Thanks for reading!

Danny Loental