I turned to him, smiled, and replied "Signing up."
I never would have been wearing that jacket if I did not start. And believe me when I say that it takes the most courage to sign that piece of paper and hand over your $625-$700+ non-refundable entry fee.
Do you know why there are so few Ironman finishers in the world? At IM Florida, they celebrated the 500,000th individual finisher of the Ironman races. That is a lot of people in general, but that is over multiple races world-wide in all 30 years of the branded event as it is held today. The reason why it has taken 30 years to hit half a million Ironman finishers is simple. The fear of the unknown.
This will be my last post on the Journey to IMFL for now. When I register for another IMFL, which I will and tentatively aiming for 2015, I will re-open this blog and catalog my journey that year much better than I did this one.
I am taking away from this experience the knowledge that I can take on anything. And more importantly, I am taking with me a lesson in how to start.
Long before my dreams of Ironman would come to fruition, I had a dream to be able to look into a mirror and love myself.
I realized that dream on this journey. I found happiness in my flaws. I stopped seeing myself as a body and started seeing myself as a person. A whole person.
The next year is going to be a tight and tough one for us, but one we will survive and thrive in I am sure. I am taking a year off from Ironman training to focus on performance and the next phase of my body transformation.
I am returning to Ironman in 2014 with Ironman Wisconsin. I am going to be training much differently the next few years, and with that comes additional excitement.
So I leave you with this, the final post of this particular leg of my journey. The message is simple.
Never give up, but more importantly have the courage to START.
Who knows where you will end up... but isn't that the fun of it?
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