We live for crazy

On August 16th, Trevor and I did the Lake Stevens 1/2 Ironman. Afterwards I asked Trevor what he thought about a FULL Ironman. His words, and this is an exact quote, "not interested". We talked about it just a little after that, but really not very much. I had said "maybe someday, I just can't imagine when".

Saturday, Trevor was on the computer, I looked over his shoulder and he was on the Ironman.com website looking to see what races were close enough to where we live that we could drive. He was looking at FULL Ironman races. Jesus. Are you kidding me? Its been two weeks and you have gone from "not interested" to ready to sign up?

We have a friend, a coach at our marathon training group, named Doug. Doug has done a full Ironman and had mentioned that he was thinking of doing Ironman Canada in 2010. Ironman races are difficult to register for. Usually, you have to be present at the current event to sign up for next year. That means, to sign up for Ironman Cananda 2010, you would need to be physically present at Ironman Cananda 2009 - not competing, just present. Ironman Cananda 2009 was yesterday. Doug was busy doing the Hood to Coast relay, so he couldn't be in Cananda.

Today, I was online, looking the IMC website, when I saw it.
"Online registeration for 2010 now open". Holy shit. I emailed Doug and Trevor and said "anyone interested". I was really hoping that by the time Doug got back to us, it would be sold out. Trevor and I had briefly discussed it and decided if Doug did it, we'd do it too - that way we'd have an awesome training partner.

I didn't hear back from Doug. I was on the phone with Trevor, joking about this whole Ironman thing, when his other line rang. He said he'd call me back. A minute later, he texted me - "Doug got in. Sign us up". WHAT???

I got online, well, tried to get online. Anytime you actually need to get to something quick, our computer practically shuts down. Trevor called me and he got onto the registration site. So did I. I put him on speaker phone and we registered together. Hit "complete" at the same time and had our registrations accepted together.

I called Doug and told him this was all his fault. I'll have plenty of opportunties to blame him over the next year. We'll need to huddle and figure out what the next 12 months will consist of as far as training.

I'm not sure I want to do it, but I know we'll do it eventually, so what better time that now. I remember a quote I saw somewhere that said, "if you are just making excuses, life's short, get in already". So we are in. Because, what the hell...you only live once, might as well live for crazy.

Here's a video/story that we watched this weekend that kind of sealed the deal for me. This is a father and a son - the son is disabled, in a wheel chair and they do races together. Dick and Rick Hoyt. They've done like 980 athletic events together. The triathlon they are doing in the video is an Ironman.

If this doesn't make you cry, you have no soul. When they get out of the water and head to the bike....It made me wonder, what's my excuse?