My IronMan Heart Break

Ok, so let me set this up. We own a Cottage in the Door County Wisconsin area. The Cottage is situated on the Bay of Green Bay and the road that the Cottage is located on is about 2.5 miles in length – I know this because I have run the road 100’s of times over the last 3 years. There is a combination of full time homes and seasonal cottages along the road. Most of the owners are a bit older than myself (I know, that seems almost impossible), but there are a few owners that are my age or a bit younger.

So anyway, the Cottage was my training camp for the summer and I completed many of my runs, rides, and swims from there. This weekend was my first weekend at the Cottage since completing the IronMan. Sunday morning I decided to go for a nice run up and down the “Cottage road” in the great 70 degree sunny weather. So, I get on my virtually head to toe IronMan gear (sorry Erin) and started out on my run. A little into my run I start thinking about how cool it is to be the only one on my road to complete an IronMan – feeling a bit cool at that point – I’m sure my pace picked up just a bit.

The thought that these younger owners that spend their summers on their wakeboards behind their $60,000 ski boats doing flips over the wake, flying over the waves with their Sail Boards, and pulling their wakeboards with their kites, might actually give me some cred for my IronMan success (ok, at least I’m batting 1000 right now) – felt pretty darn good.

Well, that lasted for about 1 mile into my run. Running past a neighbor spraying down his driveway, saw my IronMan Wisconsin gear (hard to miss with the neon lights on the IronMan hat). He nicely asked how my IronMan experience went – well, ok here is my chance to pump out the chest a little bit and give him all the gory details of the hardest day of my life (ok, a bit of an exaggeration). Before I could get 2 sentences out, he informed me that he has completed 3 IronMans (Florida, Lake Placid, Canada) and his wife has completed something like 4-5 IronMans. What, what, what – come on – no way – this is not good – this could not be happening -- I may need to find a new road with a Cottage to purchase – I must do my homework better to ensure no other IronMan are on the block.

So after I was done talking with the Freakin 3-time IronMan (going to do Brazil next year!!), my pace slowed a bit and I looked the other way each time one of the elderly neighbors looked at me – fearing that they had also completed many many IronMans.

Whats next – 75 year old UltraMan neighbors.

This sucks.