There aren't many good things about cancer. Not many at all. As a matter of fact I can not identify probably 5 of them but if you look deep inside you might find one or two. I am probably who I am today because of who has been my guardian angel most of my life, Julissa. There will be very few people you will know that have her qualities as a friend, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a professional, or even one of those persons you just know. As humans we tend to always try to find firm footing in everything you do even as sometimes you end up standing in quicksand. Firm footing, anybody can do that, but my friends when you end up in quicksand all you pray for is a helping hand. Some one to help you, to love you, to respect you, and someone to be part of your team and you part of their team. Julissa has been that part for me. See everything was bad, there was not a single thing good during my treatment no future no hope. Except..... yes that very thing, my companion and my soul mate Julissa. She stuck thru it all, the good, the bad and the ugly, asking for nothing in exchange and just being who she really is. I have thru all my blogs talked about the Ironman and what it means and how you get there. It becomes very simple and very obvious. The Ironman is a test of life, not endurance, not will power and not even straight, it is indeed a test of life. Enduring the training, having the mental attitude to tolerate the abuse, isolating those friends and family, and by placing your training above any other thing in the world, basically you isolate your life to do something for yourself hoping that in the end your "friends and Family" will be there after it is over. So you can summarize it in even simpler words. You need Passion, love, and determination to be involved in something like this, those are the qualities that summarize the true Ironman, not the one finishing the race but the one enduring the race, in my case her name is Julissa!!!!
Is this relevant sure it is, I always said I would use my life experience to describe my journey to Ironman Canada and this is no exception. If it wasn't for my cancer who knows what would have happened. I can't tell but the posibility of Julissa and me never marrying and so on and so forth is one of the scenarios. I mean we did not mary because of my cancer but sure learned from each other and grew tighter because of it and that by itself is pretty powerful. So you see even the bad can bring something good. How is that relevant? well here is a shocker for you or at least for me.
As I was doing my last checks on the bike I will ride to the Ironman I found a problem and a solved a mystery. I was always saying that for some reason my road bike was faster than my tri bike. You should see my road bike. It is hideous. My tri bike is Full Carbon and its components are the best out in the market but for some reason it never felt right. I always noticed a few things about it. One being It always took a little more effort to ride that bike than the Road bike and again the road bike always felt faster but the clock always said it was not. Another curious thing is that I always felt that when I was riding the front fork was off center to one side. I wrestled with this in the beginning months but after not finding anything I just blamed it on my bad eye and rode away. As I was doing my inspections I inspected the rear wheel hub. Surprise!!!!! Busted bearings. Wow!! I took the assembly apart and found one bearing was busted and the other one was in good shape. It bothered me that that bearing had failed but what was I going to do it could have been a series of things. As I am assembling the tire back on the bike I install the axle but the tire was turned to one side. No big deal just redo the quick release and done, right.......very wrong. As I am placing my wheel back I am sure it is in the right position and right there before my eyes was the answer to all mysteries. The back tire is turned to one side, and it is quite a bit. After scratching my head for hours I decided to go ahead and repair it using the same "dremmell" I used when it was new to prepare the holes. It took almost 3/8 of an inch to fix the problem. Incredible. I now have a straight and tru tire. The crooked tire was making the bike slope as it traveled down the road that is why it felt and looked off center. I never saw it on an uneven tire wear because I was always riding on slick tires which have no marks and since the tire never rubbed anything I never noticed it was turned. I have done some rough calculations and I am figuring probably 2 -3 miles per hour faster at the same power input which means less effort for the same speed or more speed for less effort you take your pick. If we take more speed for the same effort at 2 MPH, it means I will travel 7 more miles in the same amount of time if that holds true that means I will do my bike ride 23 minutes faster for the same effort. That is a lot. I am glad I found that out today that is for sure. I can not wait to test my bike with a straight rear tire but in the mean time I can only think of the effort I have put into my cycling and how all that training will at race day work in my benefit. So, as you can see my friends my title will most likely always hold truth, and "Even the bad in your life can lead to the good or maybe the great"
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