Fall Down Seven. Get Up Eight.

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.  The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. -- Thomas Edison

Being defeated is often a temporary condition.  Giving up is what makes it permanent. -- Marilyn Vos Savant

ICYMI - I was a DNF at IM Louisville.  Not because I wasn't properly trained.  Not because I didn't want it bad enough.  But because of another fluke incident, yes another one of those things that seem to plague me.  Stress fracture?  Hurricane?  Kicked in the head?  WTH.  I'm like a bad luck magnet.

This time, it was hypothermia...again.  Apparently, as near as I can tell, I have the metabolism of a lizard or some other cold-blooded animal.  It was chilly on the bike (especially being wet from the swim), but it wasn't that cold.  For some reason (probably my whacked-out metabolism), I am susceptible to hypothermia.  Nice, huh?   Usually it's old people or babies or people with dementia or people on drugs.  Or people with whacked-out metabolism.  That's me.

I made it through about 13 miles of the bike course at IMLOU before I found myself off the road, suffering from dizziness.  The dizziness earned me a trip to the back of an ambulance, where I started to shiver.  And continued to shiver for an hour...at which point the EMTs decided that a hospital would be a better decision.  After another hour of shivering there...and at some point, the efforts to warm me went too well, so I was actually shivering from fever at the end of the fun, I finally got back to normal functioning.  And after a couple hours of monitoring me, I was released back into the wild - still running a few degrees cold, but in no danger.

So.  After you register for 3 Ironman races, start 2, and finish 0...what do you do?  Give up?  No.  I'm not nearly sane enough to stop now.  I want my IM finish.  I want my IM Finisher Jacket, and M-dot necklace, and ALL.THE.STUFF.  Oh, and my IM tattoo.  I want it all.  And I'm not going to give up.

The way I see it - none of these were my fault.  None of them were 100% preventable if I had done something different - although there are a number of things I plan to do differently...these shouldn't really be viewed as "failures" but "false starts."  So there's no reason not to give it another go, especially if I can make a few tweaks here and there to make things better.  Giving up would be defeat.  Getting back up, one more time, is the way to succeed.