Plan B Follow-Up
I wanted to tie up a couple of loose ends related to the previous post before moving on to other subjects. In particular, the question has been asked – more than once, I should add – about whether my wife freaks out after reading posts like that.
It’s a fair question, and one that I usually have to clarify with another question: Do you mean, the “extended analogy about cheating on my wife” part, or the “I’m doing an Ironman next year” part? Because they’re each, in their own way, potentially quite flammable.
Here then, I have some answers. Regarding the analogy – the answer is “not really.” I’ve mentioned before that my wife is extremely perceptive. She’s not threatened by the thought of me finding somebody else – primarily because she knows it would take too much time away from my training. (Or, in her words: I’ve already had a mistress all these years – it’s my running.) So I think she sees the whole analogy thing as a bemusement.
On the other hand, the Ironman business is a little more bothersome. Not that she doubts my ability to do it, but she worries about the commitment of time and energy it will take away from the family. They are concerns that I completely agree with. In fact, such considerations are the primary reason I didn’t go down this road several years ago.
But nothing about the announcement took her by surprise. My Ironman scheme has been gathering momentum very slowly over the years, and we had already talked it out well ahead of the time I finally posted it here. (I mean, yes – I’m an idiot, but I’m not THAT stupid.)
More practically, there’s this: over the weekend she asked me a couple of questions that offer a reasonable summary of her feelings about the whole matter.
First, while I was watching the Ironman World Championships: “So are we going to be watching every triathlon that’s on TV for the next nine months?” And then, while I was getting ready for bed on Sunday: “Wait – does this mean you’re going to start shaving your legs again?”
And I think those are really her primary concerns: the day-to-day idiosyncrasies and ridiculousness that she’s forced to tolerate when I get obsessive about triathlon. Plus the inevitable new quirks and wrinkles I’ll acquire in the midst of high mileage multi-sport training. All the little things that aren’t immediately objectionable, but cause her to roll her eyes and wonder how she got herself hooked up with such an oddball.
That’s what will bug her the most. And that’s why I almost didn’t have the heart to tell her – the answers were yes and yes. Let the craziness begin.
***Postscript: I started writing this as an introduction to another post, but it sort of took on a life of its own. So let’s stop here for today. I’ll post the new article tomorrow.
