The Ironman Experiment: Inspiration

In my first post I have a quote by Dean Karnazes, it is also the quote I have on facebook. People like Dean, Lance, David Goggins, etc. provide immense inspiration to me. Even when its a training day like yesterday when I am called to do something as small (in the whole scheme of things) as running a 5K time trial. We are constantly going to face adversity in our training, and trying to maintain some semblance of balance in our lives. If these people can do things far greater (conquer cancer, fight in our military, run on the south pole) then I think I can HTFU and break through the wall during a 5K! As a side note to my training (this is a training blog too) I have NEVER hit the wall so hard during a run. After a solid 2 mile warmup I took off to run 7:50 minute miles for my 5K, after a mile I slammed face first into the proverbial wall. I felt like I was running in quicksand and VERY dizzy. I ran 10:30's for half a mile. Thank goodness I am easily motivated by WORDS and Rihanna's "HARD" came on. The lyric "No pain is forever" snapped me out of it and I took off to recover to a 26:20 5K. Not my best, but not as disasterous as it could have been. I REALLY need to look into my nutrition. OK end side note.

While training is a very personal thing, it is always helpful to have people who inspire us in our lives. Role models. I do not look up to people merely because they can ride fast or run far, but for other things they stand for in their lives. Dean Karnazes is one of those people I have always found tremendously inspiring. And yesterday I got to meet him. One more person to cross off the list (met Lance last year at the Tour of the Gila!)

Dean was running the PF Changs Rock N' Roll marathon, he invited a small handful of people to run an "Ultra" with him (50K - 31 miles) as a special addition to the RNR. My friend Elliot was one of those "special" people (no really, he is VERY special) :p For the past month Elliot, Josh and I have been planning on how this "meeting" would go down. This included us daydreaming about running with him (although this was reality for Elliot) and Elliot photoshopping our heads onto photos with Dean:

We then daydreamed about how we would be holding hands with Dean and how he would become our very best friend because, well, we are very entertaining. In our numerous conversations about this we came up with this list of things we HAD to do to Dean when we met him:

1. Get pic with Dean
2. Get autograph
3. Give him creepy stares as he's giving speech
4. Video tape him
5. Hold his hand
6. Jen touches his heiny

OK so yeah...maybe we were getting a bit stalkerish. But hey - it's Dean Karnazes! The year before I had organized a huge group to go see his documentary at the movie theater from when he ran 50 marathons in 50 days. I am sort of a fan OK? And I mean, LOOK AT THOSE LEGS! :p

So we head out yesterday to the Expo and arrive early, have to get front row seats. Stalking begins with us looking behind the curtains to see if he is there. He gives a speech, we ask questions AND then we get our chance to meet him. Elliot is begging me to ask to hold his hand...sure...of course I will ask! Not sure how I am going to accomplish #6 while holding his hand though. Hmmm. So we get up to him and spread out books, and pictures, and bib numbers, etc. One of the pictures is this:

So Josh asks: Do your legs REALLY look like that? He looks up at Josh and stares at him for a long time. Then he PULLS HIS PANTS DOWN!!!!!

Oh MY! So ummm yeah that answered that question. He started telling us about the photos, then talking about the ultra, I asked what was on his road ID (lat long, wifes number and "Dont worry, Be Happy") then Josh had him sign his high school photo in one of his books!

Love the addition he made to the pic. So then came the moment I had to ask to hold his hand. So I tell him we want a pic with him and he has no problem with that. Then I tell him we need to hold our hands up like we are corssing the finish line 'sure no problem' he says. THEN I tell him that we already have pics like that photoshopped so we need real ones. THAT is when he asks us if we are stalkers HA HA! Let's recap:

A good stalker dresses like his hero: