The Journey To a Texas IronMan

Off days…love them! It is the one time I can catch up on reading and a bunch of other items on the to-do list. Recently, I tripped across an article in the New York times referencing how 40 somethings are turning to triathlons. Leave it to someone to come up with this acronym: Mamils. Mamils stands for Middle Aged Men In Lycra. So if the over 40 male crowd is a Mamil, then I guess you can lump Dr. Crane and I in the Mafil category.

I’ll take it. I think Mafil is pretty cool. Here we are living a healthy lifestyle, dedicated to the sport, with the occasional luck of placing in the top three of either age or weight division and enticing people everyday to become more active and live healthier lifestyles. Many of our friends think we are nuts. I’ll take that as well. I think you do have to be nuts to a certain extent to plan out and execute daily workouts on top of work and all the other curve balls this thing called life pitches to us.

As I read the article, it mentioned the median age group is 41 years of age. I would agree with that. The average salary however which was listed at 175,000 may be a bit grand. You see, there are many who do not necessarily fall for the paying full price on the latest gear. I am one of them. I cannot remember the last time I paid full price for anything except for race entries and the bike jersey from each race. Thanks to the internet, and social websites, you can learn a lot from clothing to bikes to running shoes. Many people I meet are do not necessarily have the best of the best however they often are the winners of their respective age group. Sure, the pros have the latest and greatest…then again it sure helps to be sponsored by the brands plastered all over their clothing, helmet, shoes, bike, wetsuit, running shoes…well, you get the picture.

It all boils down to the athlete. You need to train and put time into all three disciplines. You also need to eat right, maintain life balance and sleep. Sure, I do adore my bike and the few upgrades I have done (discounted items of course) but the bike isn’t going to obtain the level of endurance needed for the IronMan. It comes down to training. So for those who think they must be of a certain income level to be in triathlons whether long or short distance your wrong. You can join in on the great fun of the multisport lifestyle just like the next guy……but you do need to train.

Talk to ya next week,
Janet