The "Strauss didn't take the Kona slot? WTF?!" Thread
I got 10th in my AG at IMWI on Sunday. 8 slots, 6 were claimed (one by our very own Dave Tallo!!). I registered for IMWI'12 at about 10:45am, walked next door to the Kona roll down to hear my name called for a slot, I declined it and congratulated the very happy 11th guy on his Kona slot, left the terrace and went on with my day with zero regrets.
I've seen a few comments here in EN and on FB, and thought maybe I should do a little more explaining. Hopefully you'll learn a bit more about me as a coach, leader, athlete and person.
My first coaching gig was called Crucible Fitness and I started it in 2001, about 18mo after getting out of the USMC
Crucible:
I chose the name because what I saw many triathletes, and Ironman athletes in particular, use of the sport and Ironman to effect definitions #2 and #3 in their lives: Ironman was used as the end point, defining moment, in a long transformative process from couch potato to Ironman, former swimmer/runner/2 pack a day smoker/whatever to Ironman. Ironman was a BIG deal for these people and I wanted to help them manage and complete the process of that journey.
This was in contrast to me: I started swimming competitively when I was 8, swam through college (NCAA D3), in a very high volume culture. I've been an athlete of some flavor all of my life. No drugs, never smoked, generally pretty clean guy . In 1995 I decided I wanted to be an Marine officer but rather doing it the "easy way" of applying directly for OCS (officer candidate school), I wanted to do it the hard way and earn a good deal of cred by enlisting, going to boot camp, infantry school, then hopefully getting into OCS. In five years I did:
- 3mo Marine boot camp at Parris Island
- 6wk infantry school
- 3mo OCS in Quantico (45% attrition rate)
- 6mo "The Basic School," infantry school for all USMC officers.
- 6mo artillery school at Fort Sill, OK
- ~3yrs in "the Fleet," where I was attached to a deployed infantry company for about 18 months and did all the cool jobs you can do as an artillery LT.
So basically when I picked up the sport in 1999 and was training for my first Ironman in 2000, I already had a lifetime of athletics and had earned a title, my own crucible, that I was far more important and more challenging for me -- I had survived, thrived, and succeeded in an arena where my job was to blow stuff up, kill people, and make decisions that would potentially kill people close to me. Though I never saw combat, that environment has a way of aligning a lot of stuff in your life, to say the least 
.
So my personal Ironman...history...hobby, etc, has never been about some big life-changing, life-defining event. It's a race distance in a sport that I like to do, and I like the distance because it's the most challenging, for a number of reasons. But, in the end, this is all just a game and I've always maintained that bigger picture perspective above about where IM fits in my own personal life.
You've heard me sum it up before: if it's fun, do it. If it's not fun, don't do it. I qualified for Kona at IMWI'02, raced it in '03, check in the box, done.
I didn't do it for a long time because it wasn't fun anymore. I wanted to do other stuff -- start EN, enjoy other hobbies, etc.
I've enjoyed (can't say it was always fun ) the process of training and racing and Ironman for the past year. 48hrs later I'm still enjoying it and I'm actually sorta looking forward to getting back on the horse and continuing the process to reach the potential I think I have. But first I need to be able to walk across the room without thinking about each step...not quite there yet!
That process and the training/improvement/racing puzzle is what I enjoy, that's what's interesting for me, not the venue or the event at which the results of that process are put to the test. In short, I've earned a more important title (to me personally) and Ironman is just a game, even Kona.
Add to all of the above the fact that I have lived, breathed, coached, wrote, spoken about Ironman training and racing 24/7/365 since 2001 and hopefully you can understand that IM, even Kona, for me is different than IM for you.
So...my Macro Thread plan for the future is:
- Recover
- Continue to address my run in the manner that works for me: create competive training situations where I run with faster people, then race a lot of 5k, 10k, half marathons through April.
- Do the work I know how to do to make some small improvements on the bike.
- Race and do very well at Wildflower.
- Keep the ball rolling through maybe a June or July HIM, and IMWI next year with a much improved run.
- Repeat that process above towards either Kona or IMWI'13. Either works for me, I really don't care which, frankly.
Along the way I'm able to schedule some cool dirt biking and snow boarding trips, put one some cool EN camps with cool EN members, go to IM's and support cool EN peeps in their pursuit of cool events...sounds like a pretty cool way to roll through the next few years!
Semper do cool shit,
Coach
Comments
I already thought you were one bad a## coach before I read this, but now I know you are. You turned down your Kona slot because it doesn't define you or EN. I remember reaching out to both you and Coach P last year after I DNF'ed at IM MOO. I was in a deep and dark miserable place and had a very long self-pity party. And you reminded me that this triathlon stuff is all for FUN and at the end of the day a DNF is just a DNF. That put it in perspective for me and I climbed out of my hole.
Congrats on a great race and I hope you have an even more fun off- season!
Joanna
Thanks for opening the window.
At this point in your career, I can entirely get how your true goal is to push yourself and see what you are capable of-- the venue at which you choose to demonstrate those capabilities is secondary to the process and transformation itself.
All I have to say is Rich Sawiris @ wheelbuilder is gonna be one hurting puppy once you get rolling again.
Thanks for sharing.
Turning down a slot for the reasons you gave is the embodiment of the Marine Corps philosophy...do things for the right reason. You remained faithful to yourself rather than grabbing the cool, shiny thing for the wrong reason.
Oorah and Semper Fi, Rich.
Martin, thanks. And if I had beaten Dave Tallo and the roll down was in doubt, the decision would absolutely have been the same. Same reason we eat last, score 300 on PFTs and never take off the pack or sit down
Great Job and lots of Kudos to you, never lose focus on what is important.