exhausting but exhilarating

a couple weeks ago i was talking to my friend rory and told him that i had signed up for a half-ironman to distract myself, and his response to my comment was something to the effect of 'oh, so you mean you signed up for it so you have lots of time on the bike to think about things?' my response to that was, hm, oops, you've definitely got a point.

my workout yesterday was awesome. we did 109 miles in six hours. i thought we were only going to be doing six 20' intervals at race pace, but it turned out we were doing eight. so my six hour ride was actually about two hours of warm up and four hours of intervals at a pace that was roughly between olympic and half-ironman distance paces. in other words, it was fast. it was really fast. and when we were done riding, we ran about 4.75 miles. it was hot. i felt fine when i got off the bike, but about a mile into the run i started to feel really tired. i wasn't running with a watch so i had no idea how fast or slow i was running. all i knew was that i felt like i was crawling. when i got done and found out how far we'd gone in how much time though, i realized that i had been running at an 8 something per mile pace and decided i should be okay for next weekend (if not more than okay). this was probably the hardest workout i've done in a couple years. laying on the cold tile floor at my friends' house afterward felt like heaven.

i just finished another book. this one was called surprised by god and it was written by a woman named danya ruttenberg. she was raised a cultural jew, became an atheist at age 13, studied philosophy and religion in college and then in her early 30s became a rabbi. the book is about her spiritual maturation. through the first half or so of the book i would barely get through a couple pages before i'd stop and, in my head, say 'YES! that is exactly i have/am experiencing/struggling with/etc.' she spends quite a bit of time talking about what is in essence meshing worlds--friends, family, lifestyle from all parts of one's life. in my opinion at least, this extends beyond just one's religious beliefs. for a few years i think i struggled with this from a religious perspective, but for even longer, i've struggled with it from the perspective of an athlete. honestly, i don't feel like i've made any progress from where i started my freshman year in college. sometimes, i really think it would be fun to go out more. i don't though because my experiences have taught me that getting up and going riding or running with people (or by myself) is more fun for me. i'm still torn over that decision most weekends, then i get up and do something like i did yesterday morning though and i feel empowered...though just as exhausted as if i had stayed up until the wee hours hanging out, if not more so.