I did it, God help me

Well the quest is now begun in earnest. I signed up for Ironman 70.3 Boise this weekend. The race is June 9th, 2012, in, obviously, Boise Idaho. I have a when and a where. Now I just need a how. What do I mean is, how on earth am I going to be ready. I really have good and scared myself this time. It being nearly $200 didn't help. So, you might be wondering, hows the training going...Okay no one cares, but Im going to speak about it anyway. I have managed to keep to the plan of 6-8 hours a week pretty well thus far. Bike and lift on Monday, Long run and swim Tuesday, repeat Tuesday and Thursday with a shorter run, Long Bike on Friday, off on Saturday and run and swim on Sunday. Now, though, I've made it past the mad scramble out of the gate, so to speak. Ive managed to heit all my goals for the month and I can feel the monotony beginning to set in. The results, weight loss to be exact is beginning to get harder to see and keeping up the diet and exercise is starting to be more of a challenge.
Constancy, or if you prefer stability, is something that I have been thinking about for a while now. It is one of the three taproot vows of the Benedictine order- not to jump around from order to order but to stay in place, in one rule of life. It's not something that I excel at. I often remind myself of Mr. Toad from The Wind in the Willows, with his manias; flights of fancy that pushed him from one extreme to the other. The challenge of maintaining a focus for a year on healthy eating and training for a serious endurance event, and not letting that focus consume me so utterly that I forget to balance my life, God, wife, work, etc. is something that I worry about. I have yet to display that type of discipline. I suppose there is a first time for everything.

new focus, new discipline, and maybe a plan

maybe its that I'm not naturally what you would call a "sharer." Maybe its that I lack the nessacary Hutspah to put my entire life on the web. Whatever the reason I make a really bad blogger. Its nothing against the internet. I cant keep a pen and paper journal to save my life either. I have been thinking lately that what this really is about is discipline. I've always thought that I'm about a hairs bredth from being ADD, I have always had trouble focusing on one thing. There's just too much going on, like right now I'm typing, but I'm also thinking about whats going on with the Red Sox, and anticipating the espresso that is brewing across the office...mmmhhh espresso, the Italians are so good sometimes - espresso, pizza, Biachi. There, see, there I go again. So you can guess from the preceding that the internet is the bane of my attentions existence. Discipline, right, have got much of it, but I've been thinking about it because in the last two weeks I've started something new, a long range type of thing with a big huge carrot at the end, metaphorically speaking - not that I dont like carrots, but....anyway, in the last two weeks, Ive averaged an hour working out a day, and Ive been eating a fairly strict diet of healthy food, which is not easy here in the Midwest, but it is, it's just not cheap, which is not so helpful. Anyway, all of this to say the "carrot" is a 70.3 next summer. I dont know where yet, but I will be figuring that out soon. My hope, prayer and true goal is to cultivate discipline in all of the aspects of my life, not just the physical. A balance of disciple across the spectrum that makes me a more complete human, husband, christian and priest.

WILL IT WORK?
God only knows. I sure hope so, but then I hope to win the lottery some days, and that hasnt happened yet. I believe it will though. I believe that it is in me to put to death the self-indulgant ego and open up more space in my life for the Holy Spirit to dwell, and move within me and through me. I desire that and I believe that is what I am called to do. I've talked about all of this for a while, but now I think I'm finally starting it.