Happiness - The Ironman "Let Down" and Lessons for everyone who wants to be happy.

-- the picture is just a reminder of what truly makes me happy--

On September 9th I accomplished a goal that I've had since around 1999/2000 (I can't remember the exact date that I put it down on paper but somewhere around then). I finished an Ironman Triathlon. I swam 2.4 miles, I biked 112 miles and I ran 26.2 miles all in 11 hours and 12 minutes.

What a great accomplishment and milestone in my life! But the question that I've been dealing with for the past week and a half is this; If accomplishing a goal like that meant so much to me, after sacrificing so many hours of my life, after sacrificing financial rewards and stability, after involving so many friends and family in my circle of support - why do I feel so empty?

If you read my analysis of the race results you will see that even then I was having a little difficulty enjoying what had just happened. Enjoying the moment.

I don't want everyone to think that I'm walking around all depressed and feeling sorry for myself, that's not true. But I do have this inner feeling that makes me feel like I should have enjoyed the finish a little more than I did.

Possibly the fact that I'm not really satisfied is a good thing, from a performance perspective. The dissatisfaction might be a strong motivator for me to train this winter and race more in 2008. That personality characteristic just might be an ingredient that exists in the personality profile of champion athletes.

I don't have clear answers to these ideas, I have a lot more questions. Here's a big one; If I'm not as happy as I want to be right now, What will give me a "10" on the happiness meter?

A book that I've been reading has put some light on this subject, Stumbling on Happiness. The book isn't a self help manual or workbook that leads you to happiness, so if you need help finding happiness, this is not a whole lot of help. But the author (Daniel Gilbert) does go through all the issues that humans face when trying to find happiness. The following are some interesting ideas that I've pulled from book that have helped me put my Ironman experience in context. Maybe they'll help you understand your little journey too:

1. We commonly do things now so that our future selves will be happy. But how well do we know our future selves? How well do we know what will make us happy in the future? -- We all think we know exactly will make us happy in the future. We are almost always wrong. -- So even if I won an Ironman, would that give me a 10. What are you chasing to be happy?

2. When people day dream they see themselves succeeding rather than fumbling or failing. -- This makes sense, why would you want to day dream about failure? The issue that I see becoming a problem is that when we day dream we rarily inject any reality into those dreams. Or, we may not set forth a plan that would help those day dreams become a reality. -- How many Ironman goals are just day dreams that are not based upon any signal / sign of real events. i.e. my cycling times at Wisconisn. -- I had a major problem seperating day dreaming in high school in relation to basketball. Unfortunatley a lot of day dreaming occured during games! I had troubles seperating out the thoughts of the crowd (girls) and actually competing. Good thing I've matured?

3. Fear and anxiety can prove to be a powerful motivator.

4. "When we imagine the future, we often misimagine the future events whose emotional consequence we are attempting to weigh." Therefore when we actually experience that future event we maybe in a position of dissappointment. -- I think this is a big reason why people always look toward the future in general and feel like it will be better than today (unless there is serious depression), the ability to find happiness is to realize the "now". Today can make us happy. We can become fulfilled today.

5. "Researchers have discovered that when people find it easy to imagine an event they overestimate the likelihood that it will actually occur..... we tend to overestimate the likelihood that good events will actually happen to us, which leads us to be unrealistically optimistic about our futures." -- Yikes!

To finish my notes from this book for now I'll share a quote the author shared from Blaise Pascal (philosopher and mathematician):

"All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even those who hang themselves."

Will winning an Ironman make me happy? Probably not. Not if I can't find a way to be happy with where I'm at right now as a triathlete. I may say that it would make me happy, but remember, we are all pretty poor at determining what will make us happy in the future. It isn't always better tomorrow, so start living today.

Spend some time in prayer, meditate for 10 minutes, tell someone you love them and mean it, go have the most passionate sex you can, spend some time helping someone ... those things are not goals, you can't "accomplish" them - but you can do them today. You can be happy.

Ironman Wisconsin - My race results and analysis.

The Stats:

Division - M25-29
Overall Place - 284
Division Place - 38/156
Total Time - 11:12:37
Swim Time - 01:12:00, Swim Overall Place - 704
Bike Time - 06:13:30, Bike Overall Place - 769
Run Time - 03:35:14, Run Overall Place - 107

Stats taken from my IMMOO results at TriResults.com


Swim Analysis: I was very pleased when I got out of the water and saw that I swam in the 1:12 range. I had anticipated a time between 1:10 and 1:15, but my intuition had me closer to 1:15 than to 1:10. The frustrating part about the swim is that it took a lot time during the swim before I felt like I was actually swimming and making progress. The major issue was sighting efficiently. I ended up using small breast strokes in order to sight, because either I was swimming zig-zags or those around me were - or we all were to start.

This can be improved upon by doing more open water swims during the summer, but it will help to just become an overall better swimmer too. This is the first year in my entire life that I have swam the entire year (not a lot a couple months, but still swam some). That consistency for 2008 will be essential again. I would love to be a sub 1:05 swimmer, since Nikki swam 1:05 at her first Ironman.... maybe she'll motivate me to actually swim some workouts with her this year?

I will also seek swim technique analysis.

Bike Analysis: I wrote a lot of information prior to the race about my race simulation rides. (Tags and links to articles) The interesting thing about my expectations for Ironman Wisconsin and those rides are that the two didn't quite run parallel. What do I mean by that? Well - During the simulation rides my common riding time for riding 36.2 miles was between 2:01 and 2:15. If you take that distance and time and derive an estimated Ironman bike split it would be around 6:15 to 6:30.

My expectation going into Wisconsin was that I could ride at or just under 6:00. Why did I think that? Because I wanted to be able to ride 6 hours. That expectation was based upon a hope and dream, not on the reality of my current riding fitness.

There are a couple things that saved my bike leg from completely blowing me up:

1. I understood that riding too hard would blow me up and I knew what type of effort I could comfortably maintain for 112 miles. While I didn't get a logical bike split expectation from the race simulation rides, they did teach me about my effort levels. Luckily I had spent a lot of time mentally preparing for the race and was able to ride at my proper effort levels and didn't chase the 6 hour idea... luckily.

2. A period of contemplating reality and pain. I've been asked before, "What do you think about all that time." During the bike, I had a long period of time (around an hour) where I thought about two people, John Reier and my aunt Connie. Both of those individuals have meant a lot to me and both are currently dealing with cancer. I spent a lot of time talking to John and it allowed me to quit feeling sorry for myself and the bloating I couldn't get rid of. I thought a lot about how it was difficult for John to eat after his chemo treatments. It made me realize the joy that I was experiencing by completing an Ironman. Praise God for the day he granted me!

3. Ale8 and a Honey Bun. The bloating that I had and all the peeing I needed to do made it very difficult to take in Gatorade or eGel's. (I wasn't trying both at the same time!) Even taking all the salt tablets didn't help. What did help was the honey bun in my special needs bag and the bike bottle I had that contained Ale8. If it wasn't for the approx 700kcals I took in by eating and drinking those two items, I would have headed directly for bonksville. The Ale8 also calmed my stomach down quite a bit (it might have been the ginger?) and I was able to resume taking in my gels.

So coming in 13 minutes slower on the bike was a little bit of a bummer, but I knew I had ridden smart (besides the two times up Devil's Hill) which meant I was ready to run.

Run Analysis: I made it through the transition pretty quick and tried to get into a "quick feet" running pattern right away. My legs actually felt sluggish to begin, but in the first mile I felt like I passed a hundred people. It also was nice to hear some of the encouragement from the spectators:

"Gary, you've got a nice cadence!" "Gary, you're making it look easy" "Gary, your pace is excellent!"

I didn't necessarily feel that way, but it was nice to get that feedback. When I hit the first aid station I contemplated to run through it and not walk through. But true to my training strategy since last November, I hit the split button on my watch and walked through the aid station grabbing water and gatorade. At 20 seconds, I took off again. "Quick feet, light feet," I kept telling myself.

I used this pattern for the entire marathon, but around mile 16 I decided to walk for 30 seconds instead of 20. That may seem like a "break down," but I was happy to be increasing the walk by 10 seconds and not several minutes or miles!

There were a few things during the run that motivated me and helped me push on: I was passing lots of other runners, I saw all the others with me several times and got encouragement (Eric, Beth, Jeff and Nikki), I ran with a guy (Jonathan Cross) that I met on the run and he was encouraging and during the last four miles I thought I was on pace to go under 3:30.

It turns out that I wasn't on pace for a sub 3:30, but did run a 3:35. That was the 107th best run of the day. That made me happy.

Final Analysis: The one thing that makes me happy about the Ironman Wisconsin race is that I had a race plan and executed it almost to perfection. The times are a little bit off (re:bike analysis) but that was due to improper expectations not poor execution. As a first Ironman attempt, I'm not sure I could have been happier with that level of committment to a goal. I beleive all the years of reading others' race reports talking about going too hard too early has really driven home the message that execution is a major factor in Ironman events.

Feeling very happy about the experience and what I was able to accomplish I have to admit that I was a little down yesterday. Looking at a time of 11:12 and then looking at where the front of pack guys race, I realized that it is going to take a lot to make it up there. "How can I get my bike that much faster?" I have asked myself that question several times the past few days.

It could have been that I turned 29 years old yesterday, which made me think about the "what next" question a lot, but I walked around the early part of my birthday thinking that maybe Ironman should become a thing of my past. Even though I enjoyed the event, I thought maybe I need to move on. Return to "the checklist". The list that says I have to accomplish "x,y,z" in order to feel successful and happy. A list that would be difficult to fulfill if even more of my time was dedicated to "going faster."

Sitting at my computer I turned on - The Samples. It kind of brought me back to a place in my life where I once lived. A place where "conquering the world" wasn't so high on my list. A time where the romance of spending a year learning to surf or running away with a loved one seemed pretty important.

Then I came full circle. Ironman is about a lifestyle I want to embrace. I want to be active, I want to enjoy the outdoors. I want to share the joy of movement. So what if I drive a wrecked '95 Saturn SL2.... I may or may not "conquer" Ironman, but I'm going to embrace it! So I'm signing up for IMMOO '08, maybe another full-distance race too if I can find one in May or June.

[Sidenote: Interesting that Nikki gave me the book Stumbling on Happiness for my birthday!]

Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience

It is now a few days post Ironman Wisconsin and it is time to sit down and write my race thoughts down. I am going to break the race into a few different reports and reviews in order to keep them shorter and topic centered. The reviews I am going to write for now are:

1. Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience
2. Ironman Wisconsin - My race results and analysis
3. Ironman - What Next? (2008 thoughts on training and racing)

Links will be provided once the reports are complete.

Ironman Wisconsin - The Experience

Thursday - 9/6/07
Nikki and I finished our early morning training sessions and jumped into the car to drive to Wisconsin. The trip was pretty uneventful other than the terrible rains that forced us to drive 35 mph for way too long.

After getting into Madison, we went straight to our hotel to see Jeff, Eric and Beth who drove up on Wednesday. Soon after arriving, Eric looked at me with a concerned look and said, "Let's take a walk." Right away I thought that my bike had been destroyed because we all transported our bikes in a U-Haul that they pulled. The initial anxiety was an over reaction to what actually happened. The short story is that Nikki's bike wasn't secured well enough and her cassette ended up scratching my rims all up and destroying my tire. The solution was that I used Beth's wheels that she normally rides because she was going to use a set of race wheels anyway. Problem solved.

Friday - 9/7/07
We woke up early enough to make our way down to the Gatorade swim. The water was really choppy and made me a little nervous. Even though I had improved my swimming a lot over the last year, it was still my first Ironman experience and the idea of 2,300 athletes swimming together made me nervous. The choppy water didn't help.

The rest of the morning was spent at the convention center getting massages (I didn't but the others did), buying items at the store and getting my registration packet. One major lesson I learned was to not let your USAT membership expire. My number expired on 8/31 so I had to stand in line forever while Nikki by-passed at least 45 minutes of standing in line.

Upon returning to the hotel Eric spent time changing out wheels and cassettes for us. Thank goodness for his bike mechanic knowledge. I should learn a few more of the basics too. We went on a little ride from our hotel that afternoon to make sure the bikes worked properly. They did, but I still felt a little uneasy on new / different wheels. Looking back it was just something for my mind to grab ahold of and stress about.

The Ironman Hospitality
The rest of the weekend was really governed by the Ironman timeline. We went to the athlete dinner and meeting, we raced, we woke up Monday morning and went to the Ironman store, attended the awards banquet and then left. One thing is for certain, Ironman does fully support the athlete and they do a tremendous job building up the experience to be a one-of-a-kind event. I've always been a little anti-MDot because of the associated attitude. (The one that says your not "xx" if you haven't done Ironman or Kona, etc.) I can see the addiction to these events and I appreciate the place that these events have in triathlon. But I also appreciate the place that events like the Lake Barkley Race has too.

Why Triathlon is different than many sports.
One thing that continues to come up again and again for me is the line between the professional athletes and the age-group athletes. This maybe due to the fact that professional triathletes don't make big money or because they commonly come into the sport from positions that rarely include the limelight, I don't really know. Maybe triathletes are just level headed by nature (although I've seen some very unlevel headed age-groupers....).

After volunteering at the finish line of the Ironman Louisville race and talking to people that were also there, several people mentioned how nice Chris McDonald (the overall winner) was. At Ironman Wisconsin we sat down at the athletes' dinner and Jeff began talking to a kid sitting next to him. While in line, I realized that it might be Zach Ruble a younger professional. Jeff, Eric and Beth ended up talking to him throughout the dinner and I had a brief opportunity to also talk to him after the race. Once again an example of a professional that was generous with his time and not big-headed. How many sports can an average fan/athlete get that close to the professionals?

The Spectators and Volunteers at IMMOO
This is definately the best part of the Ironman race experience in Wisconsin. There were over 3,500 volunteers at the race! It is pretty amazing to have volunteers strip your wetsuit, find your transition bags, unrack your bike, chase you down with bottles of water, etc, etc.

The fan support for this race is also like no other event I've done, outside of the Chicago marathon. A few things that really stood out to me:

- Swim to Bike transition: heading up the helix and into the parking garage was amazing. Spectators stood two or three deep all the way up the helix, which made it hard not to run by-the-way. A very nice pick-me-up after swimming 2.4 miles.

- Verona: Beth and Eric had told me about the people in Verona, but it had to be experienced. Riding through town made me feel like a professional cyclist riding through a small town in France. The street was baracaded off, spectators were lining the street on both side cheering.

- Devil's Hill: If Verona made you feel like a professional cyclist, then this climb definately did. The spectators were line up on both sides again, but this time there were no baracades. It reminded me of some Tour de France climbs when you wonder if fans are going to get out of the way... in this case, out of my way. As we hit that hill, both times the cheering got me a little juiced and I killed the hill. I spun fast and past a lot of riders both times. (And noticed my heart rate in the 170's!)

Final Thought
The experience of doing an Ironman is worth the time, effort and money that it took. I always anticipated I would race Wisconsin in 2008, now I am certain I will be there again. While I was a little too dazed to hear my name called out "Gary Ditsch. You are an Ironman" I was told by several people that they saw it online.

Another amazing thought. People actually cared and were able to see me become an Ironman. The only thing that was able to make the day better, was that Nikki became an Ironman on the same day! The training and the race will be an experience we will be able to share together for a long time.

My F&*K You Philosophy: Why I want to be an Ironman.

So here it is - race week, 6 days before I participate in my first actual Ironman race (done the distance without the label) and I've spent a good amount of the last 4 days in the hidden corners of my mind asking myself - "Why do I want to be an Ironman?"

I'm thankful that I haven't had to analyze this question before now because there is a possiblity that I couldn't come up with a good answer, therefore making the daily training even more difficult. But the process of training is over, I have put in 451 hours and 50 minutes of training in 2007 to get to this point. At times I've felt cursed with this desire to know "why" about everything or to find an underlying meaning for every action. After reading the new biography on Einstein, I wonder how difficult it was for him to never find a "unified theory". Imagine having such an intimate knowledge of this universe, only to come to a point in life where there doesn't appear to be a simplistic methodology for understanding it. I guess that is a curse some people bare, the curse to find meaning and an inability to just let things be what they are. With that perspective in mind, here you go:

As I have thought about this, the interesting thing for me is that from the beginning (1999) to now, there has been a gradual transformation in the reasoning for why I wanted to participate in endurance activities.

The Beginning - I wanted an opportunity to say F-You to those who said I couldn't.

I have written before about my experiences trying to play high school football in Nebraska. Even though when I sat down on January 1st, 1999 and wrote down my goals for this new adventure I didn't put, "Show that A-hole you are better than he thought" I know that it was still there somewhere. I actually wrote down some glorified mumbo jumbo like, "use this experience as a platform to help others succeed." I'm not sure what that really means, which is why there hasn't been very many people that have benefited from my marathon running, triathlon races, adventure races or long distance cycling rides but me... to this point.

Why Ironman? Interesting enough, I'm not sure why I decided to make Ironman a goal. When I started I didn't know how to swim and I didn't own a road bike. There are two possibilities here: One - while attending the University of Nebraska I started to meet people involved with triathlon and Ironman was "the ultimate" in triathlon according to most people I talked to. Two - While running my first marathon I ended up running with a guy from Iowa. Not sure who he was, but he seemed helpful, at first. After a little discussion he started a long list of negative aspects about my marathon attempt. In a period of 5 miles he said, "You are going to Bonk" at least 20 times. He was incredibly negative about what I was doing and went on and on about how he was just using the marathon to "practice" as he was preparing for Ironman Florida. He was right, I did bonk and had a miserable last 10 miles. Maybe because I hadn't trained enough (likely) or possibly because that guy convienced me that I wasn't prepared. Either way, that jerk stole my joy. He took my happiness and accomplishment and trivalized what I had done (or was doing).

The "I'm gonna get you sucka" stage.

Once I got into a pattern of racing I fell into a phase that had me constantly comparing myself at races to others, specifically others that I felt I "had" to beat. Why did I have to beat them? Ego.

Eric Atnip says something quite a bit that helps put this into pespective. He commonly says, "I don't get paid to do this." How true. This doesn't mean that being competitive is wrong or evil, but it does allow one to review where their competitive motivation comes from. Is it from a place that wants to crush the other guy because you want to "humble" them and boost your own "self-worth" or is it an opportunity to push each other to new peaks in performance or capabilities.

One thing that I've gained by living in Lexington, Kentucky is an environment that is filled with supportive competition. The culture of support among the endurance athletes in this town is tremendous. It is supportive and positive, something that I didn't experience when I was entering into the sport while in college. (Not to say there wasn't support in Lincoln or that everyone loves each other in Lexington, but my experience in the two environments couldn't be more different.)

A lot of lessons can be learned by how some of the professionals act when winning and losing. Chris McDonald taught me a great lesson by his actions at Ironman Louisville on August 26th.

I'm glad that about 90% of that mentality has been removed from my concious and racing. Races would be incredibly unfulilling if that is where I was left today.

Where does my motivation come from today?

If I could narrow it down to a single word it might be - fulfillment. Or maybe a word like, empowering, living, satisfaction, humility....

If I could put it down in simple statements it might be any one of the following:

• - to pursue excellence in a singular area
• - to create discipline within a complicated mind in a crazy world
• - to remember that life is lived in moments of now, not recollections of times past
• - to instill a thankfullness to my God that allows me such a wonderful gift
• - to develop a trust in something other than my own mind
• - to understand pain
• - to disallow physical pain's grip upon my conciousness
• - to disallow phychological pain's manifestation on my body
• - to help carry some of the burdens that others' spirits hold (Specifically for Ironman Wisconsin I will be thinking about the burdens that God has placed upon my aunt Connie and John Reier.)
• - to remember the blessings that I get on a daily basis
• - to honor those that have had a part in my development
• - to have an excuse so that I don't drink too much once again...
• - to run from problems that seem to have no answer ... because there will be an answer once those feet hit the pavement. There always is.
• - to understand the value of working hard
  

I realize that all of this may seem a little hokie for those reading this. "How can you get all that out of running a damn race?" I agree that it may seem overstated, I could have developed and matured from the person I was in 1999 to the person I am now without ever having run a single mile. But I didn't! There are two tools that God has given me to deal with the demons I face and improving myself as a person - poetry and physical endurance. I'm not so open to sharing my poetry anymore, so you get to look into the window of my life through my racing.

If you want to read about someone else's journey that just finished at Ironman Louisville, I suggest you go read Courtney's Race Report. Sometimes a race means more than just what happens on a single day. Think about the lasting impression John "Blazeman" Blais will have upon the concious of those in the war on ALS.

Sure, there will be moments this Sunday where I will be motivated by images of me walking up to certain individuals and saying "F--K You!" But thankfully, I have a list of things that now motivate me than just that.

Checking out until next week. Follow Nikki and I at www.ironmanlive.com. Nikki's race number is 2031, my race number is 437. There also will be text updates at various times at, www.twitter.com/ditschfitness