Ironman--Check
Iraq--Check
Ride around Beijing--Check
Alpe d'Huez--Check
But it is not true. Like my ADD sons, then next thing I do is guided by the last idea to enter my head.
Sorry if you gave me more credit than that. Wait!! Squirrel!!! I'll be back.
Really, let's start with the Ironman. Surely, a life ambition. . .surely NOT.
My wife's main running buddy Terilyn reminded me a few nights ago of a conversation we had after a half marathon we ran in 2010 with a half dozen members of our Church. After the race Terilyn asked me if I was going to do a triathlon. "No way," I answered in a millisecond. "I never learned to swim. I have no interest in triathlons."
So how did I end up spending 16 hours and 34 minutes in Louisville swimming, biking and running 140.6 miles? In November 2012 the pastor of our Church preached a sermon comparing the Ironman triathlon to the Christian life. I was playing Army at the time. My wife decided after the sermon she was going to do an Ironman. She told me so that night. I knew she meant it. She made the same kind of calm announcement when she decided to donate a kidney to a stranger. I knew she would do it. Projected date 2015. She needed time to train for the bike.
She HATES the bike. But she bought a bike in January of 2013. She named it SPDM (Sudden Painful Death Machine) and started to ride.
OK then. I told her I would do it too. Which meant I would have to learn to swim at 59 years old. I never learned and I could not swim at all. Not close to one length of the pool. I got lessons. I learned.
Life plan? Bucket list? Nope. Squirrel ran past. I chased it.
Did I always want to re-enlist in the Army and just happen to choose 2007? Nope. In 2006 I read August 1914 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The hero of the novel is an old (mid 40s) soldier who re-enlists for World War 1. He loved it, even as the Russian armies were badly beaten by the Germans. Around the time I read the novel, Congress raised the enlistment age by seven years. I could get back in. So I tried. I got in.
At the end of the 90s and the beginning of this century I made more than 35 trips overseas to five continents in four years. I have ridden in almost 30 countries. Bucket list?
I did not even have a passport in 1998 when I got the job that would send me overseas almost every month. I never had a passport. The only time I went overseas before that was with the Army.
Suddenly I was Mr. Bike--Around-the-World. No plan. I just decided to take my bike on these trips. No one else at my company did. The opportunity was there. I took it.
My next big activity will be marching 28 miles with a 40-pound pack. Why am I doing this? Well, I was planning to do the march without the pack, but then I thought, 'I am getting out of the Army in May of 2015, might as well see if I can carry the pack for 28 miles.'
So no, there is not a Bucket List. I don't have a big or small list of things I want to do. But if someone asks me to do something I have never done before and it sounds good at the time, I might do it.
Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 3
Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 2
Tough Mudder vs. Ironman is Here
Second Tough Mudder Report
First Tough Mudder Finish
First Tough Mudder Photos
First Tough Mudder Entry
Ironman Plans
Ironman Training
Ironman Bucket List
Ironman Idea
Ironman Danger
Ironman Friendship
