Movies That Matter

When I was just a young sprout in the fourth grade, we used to have these competitions where all the kids got in two lines and the two people in the front of the line had to answer a spelling challenge.  The loser got to sit down and watch the rest of the kids do their challenges while the winner went to the next round and that sucked because I lost more often than I won so I spent a lot of time in my chair, watching the other kids trying to spell "squirrel" or "popsicle".  Anyway, there was this girl named Theresa Thomas that won every time and I hated her for it.  She never lost.  Maybe she was nice, maybe she wasn't, I have no idea.  I just know I hated her.  Spelling freak.  

And, and, AND the teacher was showing a good deal of bias against me and towards her because Theresa could spell "apple" without thinking about it.  She just spit it out without so much as a backwards glance.  She just spit out the letters A P P L E like it was nothing.  I had to pause and go back and ask for a timeout and hope that you did spell "apple" with an R.

One day,  this kid in my class that nobody liked convinced his Mom to shuttle his old, raggy looking cat and her bastard kittens to school a few weeks after the kittens were hatched for show and tell. Apparently, this kid thought if he brought something spectacular to school to share, like a batch of illegitimate kittens, it would help augment his lowly social standing. He was wrong. He just didn't understand the whole show and tell fourth grade social ladder thing. It's pretty complex, but it goes something like this:

Bring in a pet snake – plus 3

Bring in a german shepherd or rottweiler that does tricks – plus 2

Bring in your pekingese that does tricks – minus 1

Have your Mom attend class and acknowledge your presence – minus 5

There is a more comprehensive list published somewhere, but you get the idea.

So this kid's mom showed up just before recess, and we all got to hold a kitten as long as we promised not to drop them.  The kittens made noises and wiggled and chased bits of ribbon around the floor, and all the girls wanted to hold one of those cute little wigglers and then they held them up to their faces and remarked how soft they were and how “just so adorable” they were. How weird is that? Forth graders using the word “adorable?” Puke.

A couple of the girls squealed at how cute the kittens were and another girl cried. She actually teared up because the kittens were so cute. Her social status went up a plus 2 for that little tear-fest but I hated her anyway because she made fun of me for getting C's and D's on my spelling tests all year long and she always got A's and B's. I hated her so much. We all hated her and her stupid spelling A's and B's. I don't know what happened to her but I hope she lives in a mobile home in Florida. They have hurricanes in Florida.

The boys wanted to hold the kittens too but we were too boyish to admit we liked furry faced kittens, so we just sort of stumbled around and punched each other on the shoulder and waited until the girl kitten-rush was over, then we just randomly grabbed at an available cat. I finally got one but the kitten I got to hold didn't seem to behave like the other kittens. My kitten didn't seem like the others at all. My kitten was like Gumby. My kitten just sat there in the my arms, barely moving,  just staring cross-eyed at the crying girl.  Maybe she was holding him earlier and dropped him.  I didn't want to get in trouble for breaking a kitten so I did the rational thing and walked him over to the traveling kitten box with the worn out mom cat and chucked him back in.  Maybe he just had a kitten sinus condition and got better later that day.  I wish I knew how that shabby kitten turned out, but I don't.  

I have nightmares now about lots of things: Monsters. Sharks. Under-cooked poultry. Cross-eyed kittens.  I have a long list of fears that wake me up at night.  The burdens that we bear are ours for as long as we choose. We elect to carry those things too valuable to cast away: past failures and faults, disappointments and inadequacies, regrets of things done or left undone. We carry these treasures for as long as we are able, until the burden becomes too great to carry, until we set it aside and just let it go. Such is life.

You can't train for Ironman if you pack a lot of baggage around.  It's too hard.  There are too many hills to climb and pains to soothe.  You have to do it for reasons you can live with and those reasons will be your own.  You have to put in the effort without regretting the time lost.  A couple years ago, I was bemoaning my aches and pains to a co-worker while training for IM CDA.  He listened for a bit and then he said that I didn't sound like I was enjoying it.  He was right.  You have to get your mind right if you are going to do this.  Wrapping your head around the aches is part of it.

I swam today with my swim group and I got tired and wanted to quit before the set was over but peer pressure kept me going.   I wish I could say I kept going because I knew working hard when I am tired would make me a better swimmer, but that wasn't it.  Fear kept me going.  Some social compliance thing.  I didn't want to be the only kid in the class holding a cross-eyed cat.

I admit that rationalization is inadequate.  It was fine today but wait until the dog days, when I have no time to spare, when all I can do is sleep, go to work, train, sleep.  What then?  

I have 23 weeks and some odd number of days left until Whistler and I can't honestly say why I am doing it. I like the idea of Ironman. I like training for Ironman. I like the t-shirts. I like the workouts and I like putting my fat pants in the closet. But so what? Who cares? There has to be more.

Movie: Bite the Bullet.  It is one of the best westerns ever made without John Wayne.

My favorite scene is when the character "Mister", played by Ben Johnson, is telling "Sam", played by Gene Hackman, the reason why he wants to win the horse race. Mister is dying, just minutes away from death, sitting by a camp fire, when he explains that he has held every job possible, from cowboy to miner to barman, but he never made a decent living and, because of it, he wasn't important enough for anybody to know his name. He feared that he would die unmourned and unremarked. Then he died and his fear was realized, so Sam said “I didn't even know your name, Mister.” Maybe you had to see it, but it was a great movie moment. Mister wanted to make the world stand up and take note of his life, and his death. Through victory, Mister thought some unrelated, unattainable goal could be realized. He was wrong.  I don't know that it is my top movie choice of all time, but it is definitely top five.  Definitely. 

I used to have similar dreams and visions, thinking that, through competition, I could repair my past failures, resolve those things unresolved, maybe even validate my life. I think Ironman means something different for all of us. What thing do any of us hope to gain? A three cent ribbon? A t-shirt? Winning? Victory?  Do I hope to see my name in a newspaper or on the Ironman website? Will some stranger stop me on the street and ask for my autograph? Will Cannondale offer me a sponsorship? Do they give out sponsorships in the seniors division? They give out senior division sponsorship for golfers, so maybe, maybe they have me spotted as the next spoksemodel, ala Arnold Palmer.  Now that I think of it, I gotta brush up on my interview technique.

As odd as it sounds, unless you are a pro or trying to be a pro, you aren't competing against anybody else. Your only competition is yourself. There isn't really a 'win' in the age groups. If you come in first in your group, that's great and good for you, but I think your complementary t-shirt looks a lot like my complementary t-shirt. Definitely.  Of course, I won't be going to Kona.  Definitely.