Groundhog Day...

has come and gone. and i don't think that he saw his shadow this year, so six more weeks of winter? is that right?

it has me thinking about the bill murray movie by the same name, in which he is condemned to live the same day over and over again. at first, he enjoys the predictability, then it becomes hellish, then, finally, he begins to, once again, see meaning in things; in spite of, or maybe even because of,  the repetition and predictability. he is able to find what is creative and human in his situation, even though it is a dystopian trap. i hate to repeat an aphorism, but...so as in life, so as in ironman training...same day, over and over.

except that is not really true. is it? things are in constant motion. same day, but never really.

my coach has been quoted as saying that ironman training is the same week, over and over and over again.
does this ever ring more true than now?, during  base training in the northern hemisphere? same walls, same tv, same me. over, and over and over. and what choice do we have but to give up or to find the hidden sources of creativity and humanity within the repetition?

training has been going well. life is hectic. everything seems to happen indoors or else your fingers freeze and hurt for the rest of the day. work is busy. every workout is like a choice not to do something else for someone else. no-one really seems to understand or empathize with all this ironman bullshit. so workouts become something near clandestine. they are a source of joy, pain, guilt, triumph, agony, boredom, epiphany, prolific gas, frustration, liberation, complication, narcissistic fantasy...and nightmare. yes. all that. aren't they all of that for you?

and this leads, inevitably, to existential issues. at least for me it does. like why am i doing this?  why am i becoming a pain in the ass fund-raising menace?  lots of people have had cancer.  who really cares???

I DO.