Onward
Last week I wrote about not caring. About the weight of a moment that was hard to name and harder to explain. About samsara and goldfish and elephants and a quote about darkness that found me at the right time.
This week was different.
Not dramatically. Not in any way that would show up in a headline. Just different in the way that matters — the kind of week where you remember, quietly and without fanfare, why you started doing this.
Plutonium Man triathlon. I wasn't racing — the tattoo appointment I'd cancelled the week before had been my reason to skip it, and by the time that fell apart the decision was already made. So I volunteered instead. Bike out and bike in. Standing at the mount line for hours, watching athletes come through transition, calling out numbers, sending people off onto the course.
It was exactly what I needed.
There's something about being inside a race without being in it that strips the whole thing back to what it actually is. Nobody at the mount line is thinking about their CTL or their 70.3 split projections. They're just moving. Trying to clip in smoothly. Remembering to breathe.
I got to cheer every friend as they went out and came back in. I asked a stranger if they'd forgotten anything — they had, their helmet, still back in transition — and ran to get it before the race official noticed. I yelled at people who weren't paying attention to the dismount line, which turns out to be a deeply satisfying thing to do. Somewhere between all of that and the margaritas and the cowbells and watching people do hard things badly and bravely in equal measure, something reset.
Note for next time: bring chalk. The dismount line situation would be significantly easier with better markings.
Then today: third course recon in Richland. 2.2 hours, 211 TSS, HR averaging 126. Full day of driving to get home after. The course is not abstract anymore. It lives in my legs in a specific way that no amount of indoor training replicates. I know where it opens, where it pinches, where the wind will find me and where it won't.
Four weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington.
The training this week was light — three days, 260 TSS — but the early week delivered four consecutive nights of 8-plus hours of sleep, which after everything the last few weeks have held felt like the body finally exhaling. HRV held steady Mon-Thu, 6.7 to 7.8. Weight sitting at 170, consistent and unremarkable.
The hard moment from last week hasn't disappeared. It doesn't work like that. But it's smaller today than it was seven days ago, and the volunteering helped, and the course recon helped, and friends and a couple of margaritas at a race that wasn't mine helped more than I expected.
Onward isn't always a battle cry. Sometimes it's just the next thing.
Today it was a long drive home and a course I now know by heart.
That's enough.
Weekly metrics: 3 training days · 4.2 hours · 260 TSS · HRV 6.7-7.8 (5 valid days) · Avg sleep 7.1 hrs · Avg HR 113.7 · Weight 170 Sunday: 3rd course recon Richland · 2.2 hrs · 211 TSS · HR 126 Volunteered: Plutonium Man bike out/in 4 weeks to Ironman 70.3 Washington