Time To Get Selfish?

I am learning a hard lesson, and I can’t say that I like it that much.   For ‘tis an ugly lesson with ugly implications.  And if I take it as seriously as I should, it means I may have to risk the well-being of some precious real-life relationships.  Basically, that lesson is that if I am to have a real shot at completing the Tour Divide race of 2010, I am going to have to get a lot more selfish. 

You're a bum, Rock, ya know dat!?

There’s a scene in Rocky II where old man Mick tells Rocky that “For a 45 minute fight, you gotta train hard for 45,000 minutes!”  Only he left out the “H” in the word “thousand.”  Forty-five tousand minutes, I tell ya!!  Well I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I have taken that little nugget of movie wisdom and applied it to every event I’ve ever trained for.  Or at least I’ve tried…prior to last year’s backpacking trip to the Colorado Rockies, for example, I trained with a fully loaded pack as much as I could, but I never came near Mick’s ungodly 1000 to 1 ratio.  The point is, though, I like to train as if I’m actually trying to attain that goal, no matter how out of reach it may seem.

Well, the Tour Divide is 2745 miles long, so using Mick-logic once again, I need to get in 2,745,000 training miles.  Lol, not bloody likely.  But the sentiment is still true.  The TD is a race of epic scale, the most brutal and carnivorous of maneaters, and to even have an iota of a chance, I will have to spend every precious free moment in training.

That being said, here is a sentence that I think I will be saying quite a bit for the next year:  “Sorry, I can’t.  I have to train.”

Mom’s birthday party on Saturday?  “Sorry, I can’t.    I have to train.”

The words I will write on a friend’s wedding invitation?  “Sorry, I can’t.    I have to train.”

Wife’s company picnic?  Niece’s softball game?  Annual family vacation to New Braunfels?  “Guys, I really am sorry, but I just can’t make it.  I have to train…the race is only a year away.”

Unfortunately, I am not joking about any of this.  Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and Paul and I are spending it training at Hunstville State Park with a goal of 200 miles in two days, which would be a first for both of us.  My poor, lovely wife and daughter are getting shafted out of a fun family holiday because of it. 

Using another movie example (which I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of on this web site), I urge the reader to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger in this priceless clip from the 1977 documentary “Pumping Iron,” in which Arnie is competing for the Mr. Olympia title:

While I couldn’t bring myself to miss my dad’s funeral, and while I stop short of calling social commitments “negative forces,” Arnie’s basic premise is true in terms of my training for the TD.  If I was a seasoned endurance rider, maybe I wouldn’t have to castrate myself from my own life.  But I’m coming at this thing as a total noob,  and I’m afraid that if I don’t give it everything I’ve got, I’m just setting myself up for failure. 

And so, for the next 13 months, I must make a social outcast of myself.  Adios, dear nephew, have a blast at your birthday party.  Adieu, my beautiful wife, I won’t be there when you wake up Saturday morning.    No, dude, I can’t help you move, I’m sorry, I have to ride my bike.  Yeah, I guess I’m kind of an a-hole like that these days.

I don’t expect a great deal of understanding…most people I mention this quest to think I’m insane, or  don’t comprehend the brutal magnitude of the race, and thus won’t see why I have to blow them off.  Many will have their feelings hurt, I am sure.  But the simple fact is that to accomplish something so magnificent and so monumentally epic, you have to work like a dog, you have to suffer mightily, and you have to make sacrifices.   That, or fail. 

So here is a formal, pre-emptive apology to everyone I shrug off for the next year.  To my family and friends, I am truly sorry, and I will do my best to make it up to you when the race is over.  I hope until then, you will support me in this grand endeavor and forgive me when I blow you off.  I promise I will make it up to you!

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