I rolled this old black eye up at the ceiling like some sort of decrepit Moby Dick (what kind of name is Moby Dick btw?). Today marked a month since IMFL and I mostly stuck to taking 3-4 full weeks off. It wasn’t hard. I haven’t wanted to do anything for the first time in awhile. Yesterday, while spending time with a high school friend suffering from Huntington’s disease (it’s terrible, google it) I was reminded yet again that I get to do this. I 100% take my health for granted, and though unfocused on anything other than the act of getting up and starting again, I got up and did just that.

It was, as many reloads, a comedy of errors. I pulled the string in my bathing suit into the hole in the suit and promptly followed that up by breaking the nosepiece of my goggles, but I persevered these grave injustices, swam until my shoulder started hurting and then got out to find the toe that’s been bugging me on runs somehow also bugs me in the pool. I point this out as a ridiculous complaint, as yesterday as old friends got together to visit with another, I was struck by how we all complain about our aches and pains non stop. As our group ran through our litany of backs and knees, our other friend struggled to talk and control tremors, trapped in a body that is defying and failing him. So today I got up.

Getting up and exercising isn’t heroic. It should be the bare minimum, but with no goals and a lot of questions regarding if/why I do triathlon anymore, I too struggle with “why” I do it sometimes. I get in a funk and do nothing. This is the normal ebb and flow of goal setting, I know, and as I continue on, I know the “whys” will change. Some days “because I can,” should suffice. It doesn’t. But it should.

So the old whale looked up at the ceiling of the pool. Gave thanks. Smiled for his friend, and swam to the bottom of the pool, holding my breath and enjoying the silence.

Because he could.

#hugsandhi5s