Cicero Triathlon: Running

By the time I had completed the first two events, I surprisingly still had quite a bit of energy left to accomplish the run portion. My legs however, did not agree with me.

For those of you who know me, you’ve known about the fact that I have a rather messed up leg situation that has caused me to visit many physical therapists in the past along with needing prescribed custom fitted orthopedics to put in my shoes. Long story short, the bones in my legs twisted as they grew causing one of my legs to be slightly longer than the other. There is a fix for this, but I personally don’t want to have both of my legs broken and reset with me sitting in a wheel chair during the healing process and then having to go through physical therapy to train myself to walk again.

So it wasn’t surprising that my calves were hard as rocks when I started jogging down the first part of the run course. I tried to continue at a brisk jog, but every time my foot came down on the ground pain shot through my calves of steel and I couldn’t forge through. Stopping wasn’t an option and neither was giving up after I had already struggled through the first two events. Calling upon the power of the elderly mall walkers of America, I began to speed walk which still caused some discomfort, but not nearly as bad as jogging.

As I continued on my three mile speed walk I realized that there were indeed people that had not passed me during the bike portion of the race. This realization came as a surprise as they proceeded to pass me during the run portion that I was speed walking. Again they were very supportive as they bested me, which again gave me the mixed feelings of sarcastic support. However, this time the spectators sitting in their front lawns were also clapping and cheering as I passed by their houses. It is an odd day when a family sits together in their lawn chairs and gives a fat man passing by overwhelming applause as if he had done something other slowly pass by their location… but it was nice.

The whole walking thing took me what seemed to be forever to complete and as I rounded the final corner to the finish line, my good friend Alex yelled that if I thought I was going to walk across that finish line that he would proceed to beat the crap out of me… so I picked up the pace and ran towards the final goal. Even though I was one of the last people to come through, there were still spectators and other athletes lined up on each side cheering me on, slapping me on the back as I passed and reaching out to give a high five to the overweight, out of shape guy who didn’t die.

Completing the course felt wonderful, but the enthusiasm from the other athletes and spectators took that feeling to a whole other level. Never before have I experienced so much support from people that I don’t even know. As I stood at the end, my wife quickly found her way over and we embraced as she let me know how proud she was. Many others have told me the same thing either on here, trough email or face to face and I appreciate it all. For me, completing this goal let me know that I wasn’t as far gone as I and many others had thought… not that I am by any means in good shape, just not horrible.

Tomorrow is Fat Friday, though I am expecting to have gained weight since I have done no exercise at all since the triathlon and have eaten some rather terrible food… Hardee’s breakfast, bacon and pineapple pizza, homemade ice cream with brown sugar Pop Tart topping (delicious) and Chick-Fil-A breakfast just to name a few. Still, I will be weighing in and maybe even setting a new goal since the triathlon has been checked off the list.