“You paid $650 to do a race?  What do you get for that?”

I heard those questions a hundred times when I was training for Ironman and always responded meekly with something like, “Well, a t-shirt, a medal, and the right to say I’m an Ironman.”  I knew I’d get a lot more, but it was hard to express in the beginning.

As I sit here today without a race on the calendar, it becomes a lot clearer.  It’s the first time since I started running in January 2013 that I have not had a firm goal on the horizon, and I can already tell how easy it would be to fall out of pattern.

Signing up for Ironman felt like the epitome.  I would do many races along the way, but that big gorilla was always hanging out in the corner.  I couldn’t escape him, and in a twisted…