Being Courageous

I don't feel like writing about what a big ball of stress I am right now (thanks to a nasty problem we are trying to solve at work that I have officially coined the "honeybadger" in addition to trying to prepare for IM), so I'll focus on something more positive.  It's Veteran's Day and it's 11/11/11 and I got to sleep in my own bed last night!


I don't know many veterans, but there are two notable ones in my life -- my grandpa (been missing him and my grandma lately) and Pat Tillman.  I wasn't friends with Pat, but we were acquaintances and I did have some classes with him at ASU.  Natalie and I will never forget the legendary drawing he created for the class of Pavlov's dog.  We also lived in the same neighborhood after graduation (near the Cardinals training facility), and would say hi when I ran into him at the grocery store.  Like hundreds of thousands of others, I was very moved with his decision to give up his million dollar contract with the NFL and enlist in the Army after 9/11.  And then subsequently devastated when he lost his life (no matter the circumstances surrounding how he died) in 2004.


Pat's Run is the very first event I ever actually trained for.  It was only 4.2 miles.  And, it was painful....both emotionally (was going through a breakup at the time) and physically (because I couldn't run worth crap and was even heavier than I am today).  Ironman wasn't even a blip on the radar back then.  As a sidenote, over 35,000 people participated in Pat's Run this year, which is pretty indicative of how many people feel similarly about him.


My old roommate's mom snapped a picture of this license plate a couple years ago.  I posted it on Facebook and said, "I only wish I had half the courage you did."  

While I will never have the same amount of courage as Pat Tillman had, I do recognize that what I'm about to do in 9 days takes courage.  There is always a chance that every single person out there may not finish no matter how prepared they are.  But there is a higher chance for me that I won't.  I'm just not fast enough yet to have that buffer of time on my side, if something drastic were to happen (accident, bike problem, crazy wind, etc.).  But I'm showing up anyway, will work through whatever the day gives me, and do whatever it takes to make it.  Every single person sculling in that water next Sunday morning while waiting for the gun to go off is courageous.  Including me. And, I lose sight of that a lot.