Why Endurance?
I’ve set myself a challenge to do two half-Iron distance triathlons in the same week, one in Scotland and one in Florida. Here’s the backstory.
It started when our son was conceived, a primal ambition to be able to carry my family. I was anticipating the loss of sleep and the physical requirements of taking care of a child. I wanted to make sure that I was fit enough for impending fatherhood, so I worked out every day in the gym at 5am.
As Julia got sicker and our child grew bigger, what was required of me only increased.
It was at this point I started to find an interest in endurance. I didn’t want to just be strong, appear in shape, and be able to run a few miles without it being a big deal, I wanted to be as fit as I could be. I started running further but it wasn’t enough. I had grown up spending my weekends mountain biking and I missed cycling, I wanted to re-incorporate that hobby and try new ones too - and I was hit with the ambition of pursuing an Ironman triathlon. (2.4-mile (3.9km) swim, 112-mile (180.2km) bike, and 26.2-mile (42.2km) run).
At the end of 2022, we moved homes to be closer to Julia’s family as we needed the support. We happened to move next door to a multiple-time Ironman (talk about the universe conspiring around this ambition) and he gave me his two road bikes and his trainer.
I had running shoes and a bike - I was two-thirds of the way there.
I started out with Phil Mosley’s 8-week training plan for a 70.3 triathlon (half the distance of a full Ironman) and followed it through to the end, substituting all the swimming for either more time on the bike or running. I didn’t have a race in mind, it didn’t matter to me, what mattered was that I was capable of the discipline required to follow the plan, and that I was able to build my endurance so that I could compete in a 70.3 if I wanted to.
Saturday mornings started at 4am as I tried to fit in a brick session (a long cycle followed by a short run) before Ruari woke up. Sometimes Julia was well enough to get up with him, walk him to our bedroom for a snuggle. Sometimes I would have a bit of a gap between the cycle and run workouts while I made everyone breakfast and made sure everything was good. Other times Ruari would wake earlier than anticipated and I would cut the workout short so that Julia could go back to sleep and I’d make up for the incomplete session later.
Basically, training was important, but Julia’s health was always my number one priority.
I saw the plan through to the end but Julia’s health started to decline rapidly. With more appointments, different treatments, new side effects and a loss of her physical abilities, Julia was unable to share domestic work or the labor of parenting. I had cut back on all my endurance goals and focused on being a husband, partner, caregiver, and father.
I still claimed time in my day to run.
Ruari would be at school, Julia’s cousin Iris would take her to treatments or would stay with her for lunch, and I would run intervals on my lunch breaks in the 90F Floridian summer.
I needed to run. I needed it as a way to blow off steam from the stress of life. I needed the sunshine, fresh (humid) air, endorphins, and brief freedom that came with running. I couldn’t stop exercising all together, and although I wasn’t pursuing Iron-distance endurance, caregiving had become its own endurance feat.
Then, eventually, the thing I had originally anticipated before our son was born, carrying my family, had come true quite literally as Julia lost the ability to walk unassisted.
On one particularly trying day, Julia fell as she tried to get from our bed into her wheelchair. I worked from home and I was always alert to the sound of her moving or asking for help. I heard her fall and came running. I lifted her from the floor, hugged her tight, and helped her into her chair. When I recall memories like this, I picture her eyes so vividly; she saw her hero, and felt so unconditionally loved and supported. In my reflection, in how I showed up as Julia’s husband, I felt accomplished.
Julia was such a grateful person. Through her journey with brain cancer, she maintained a positive mental attitude and always found positive things to focus on. She made others see the positives in their struggles too.
Later that day, one of many in which she had a fall, Julia and Iris had lunch together on our porch and I went for a run. It was weighing heavy on me, just how hard being a caregiver was; to not only lose my partner but the additional labor of taking care of her as she declined.
As I ran, I found myself not bitter at what was being asked of me but grateful that I was physically capable of it all.
In fatherhood and caregiving, a big part of maintaining my physical fitness was around the practical benefits (along with some emotional relief). In grief, something has changed.
In Julia’s absence, I have felt aimless and bereft but through exercise, I can tap into a deeper well.
Rich Roll in his book Finding Ultra says of endurance sports that they are “a perfect template for self-discovery - a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual odyssey to more deeply understand myself, determine my purpose, and discover my place in the world. A way to tap into my unexplored reservoirs of potential - and touch the other side.”
Caregiving was its own endurance, where I found purpose and pushed the limits of what I thought I was capable of. Grief, too, is its own kind of endurance.
But through the pursuit of endurance sports, there is a path to actualizing the version of myself I see reflected in Julia’s eyes; a path to move forward but to also hold her close.
