If I Could Give More

It's 8 hours until the start of the race and I'm laying here awake wishing for nothing else but to have some tangible way of giving the GEEKGRL my strength, my legs, my lungs. It's not that those things are so great but I do know they will carry me from start to finish in under 17 hours...I knew that before I did my first iron distance event at Oklahoma City. It's not arrogance on my part. I know that many outside factors can sneak in and prevent a finish but I have always been a very physical guy and if there is one thing that I know well it is my physical abilities.

The GEEKGRL on the other hand has never been a physical gal. As she has said many times she had mastered the sedentary lifestyle, why run when you can walk? Why walk when you can sit? Why sit when you can sleep?

The Ironman will not tolerate any hint of that attitude. The Ironman, at least in your first run through, smells fear and feeds off of it. The Ironman takes you to some dark and lonely places in your mind and let's faces it, some of us have much darker and lonelier places to go that others.

The GEEKGRL is one such person. The dark and lonely places she can get to are a far cry from the places I can go. By comparison I go to places where Teletubbies torment you with their endless silliness...the GEEKGRL can get to hell or at least very close. This worries me, it pains me,.. it sickens me that I can't stop it, deflect it or deflate it.

I know the GEEKGRL is strong; while I think she is beautiful, a great cook and a fantastic person to hang out with I married her for her character and her inner toughness, let's face it life can be hard and when the chips are really down you want a partner that can stand by your side and not cut and run or wilt and fold.

When I met the GEEKGRL she was a single mother of three on welfare living in a shack in a rural town of 250 people struggling to get by while working on her master's degree so she could provide her children a better life. Now she would take umbrage for me calling her home a shack but be your own judge. The place was condemned when she bought it, it had saplings growing through the floorboards. After she fixed it up many of the upstairs walls had plaster missing from the walls and holes in the floor boards. Her bedroom ceiling had old bed sheets stapled to it so she wouldn't get hit with falling plaster from when the kids ran through the house upstairs. She built the kitchen cabinetry out of used plywood and her gas line ran above ground from a tank to her house so in the winter if the pilot light went out the condensation in the line would freeze and she would have to go out in the snow and lay across the line to use her body heat to thaw it out so she could get the furnace re-started.

Anyway, she was surviving that and was still cheerful and optimistic. She had a husband previously who literally tried to kill her, choke her to death while, fortunately, another man beat him off of her as she was losing consciousness.

I have one true skill when I really apply myself and pay attention. I can see past people's surfaces, their surroundings and their defences. If I really focus I can read people's character like it was an open book and the GEEKGRL was the most amazing person I had ever seen and I wanted to be like her and I wanted to be with her. I knew that I could provide for her and her children materially and if need be, physically and that for that small trade off I would have the opportunity to enrich my life, enrich my soul, by more than with any other action I could imagine and so from that point on I dedicated myself fully to developing the kind of life and circumstances that would allow her to flourish and so my role as protector.

The ironic thing is in life you can kill someone with your protection. I could just as easily snuff out the fiery will power she possesses by never allowing her to make the kinds of outrageous moves that formed her in the first place and by doing that I would kill us both.

So here I am my friends, typing away this night worried sick about my wife and wanting her to face down this thing called Ironman. I have given her all I can, all that I dare give and still keep her intact. However, you can lend her your strength through your thoughts, encouragement and prayers and I would ask for all that may be given to help her through this day. I know that she can make it but it will be a struggle. I am her protector and I soften the blow when and how I can...I'm just askin'

As Al would say, thanks for reading.