If you're lucky enough to avoid injury while you're out conquering the world with your great feats, then all the better. If not, you most likely will have to pay the price of pain, unrewarded in the traditional sense, and without pomp or circumstance or any of the other usual ways that superheroes are exalted.
A friend once told me about an explorer in the 1800's who set out to cross the Antarctic from sea to sea, via the pole. Disaster struck this expedition when its ship became trapped in ice and was slowly crushed before the party could land. Ultimately they escaped, with no lives lost, and he too, became a hero.
The explorer, known as Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, eventually became a role model as one who, in an extreme circumstance, persevered. Somewhere in his life's journey he was quoted as saying, “Optimism is true moral courage.”
It's easy to be an optimist when all is going well, but who you are when things fall apart is truly an eye-opening and sometimes frightening realization. To experience pain to such a degree that each day is a challenge makes it difficult if not impossible some days to remain optimistic. To any type "A" personality who is also an athlete, it can become a difficult pill to swallow, given their goal-oriented nature.
And as if time, the metric by which all progress is measured, becomes your enemy because, well, you're not getting any younger.
Three long months of PT with no end in sight; Ironman continues to be....elusive. In the meantime, trying to be optimistic.
