90 Days to Ultraman Mexico: The Night Before Lake Placid

Ironman Lake Placid tomorrow.

I’m sitting poolside at The Devlin. Everything is ready for the race except for adding some air to my front tire in the morning. I feel comfortable and prepared. I still don’t know how to change a bike tube, but I’ll have to hope for the best. The tires and tubes are fresh, and I’ve completed two full Ironmans with no issues. Ultimately, if a flat happens, it happens. There’s nothing I can do now to change that possibility.

The water temperature looks low enough for a wetsuit-eligible swim. I wasn’t expecting that, but it’s good news. I swim faster with a wetsuit and expend less energy. Once I finish the bike tomorrow, I’ll feel both relief and the dread of lacing up for the marathon. The marathon is where I truly love to be mentally and physically. Riding the 112 miles beforehand allows me to go even deeper into my mind. A marathon used to fill me with fear even when I was fresh. Now I want my legs to be heavy before I put my shoes on. I’m excited to see how my legs feel tomorrow. I’ve been putting in more miles than ever in the past few months. Ideally, I’ll be feeling strong deep into the marathon. My wildly optimistic goal is a 5-hour marathon; anywhere between 5 and 6 hours will be good.

I’m not going to worry about tomorrow. The only way to approach it is one moment at a time. Now I see that there is only ever one moment: the present. The past shapes how we face the now, but it doesn’t have to or at least, we can be conscious of how it does. The self, a product of the past, attempts to control our response to the present. This is our default adult awareness, but it is not the only possibility.

Letting go of the past, letting go of the self, is possible with practice. Only then can we truly experience the present. Otherwise, we’re just re-experiencing the past in the present, a conceptualization of what was, not what is. This discordance between the present and awareness is the source of the problems we constantly try to solve. The delay between the present and our awareness is the self or at least an aspect of it. Becoming aware of the self allows us to see what must be released.

You must know the self to let go of the self. The task is to distinguish what is self and what is not. Only then can you negate the self and allow the present to come in. At that point, you are ready to face whatever comes. Tomorrow the intensity of the present will become so great the self will fade away. I will be held fast by the present. This is a prize anyone can win and nobody can buy.

I love it.