An iron day

Monday: Bike 19 miles, swim 3,200 yards

Tuesday: Rest

When I'm standing at the starting line of the Ironman, looking around at all the 5-percent-body-fat uber-athletes with their $4,000 bikes, choking down panic and wondering what on earth I've done to belong there, I'm going to think about days like yesterday. Days when I have to enlist my children to monitor my email so I can squeeze in a bike ride while waiting for urgent work, when I'm still in the pool pounding out the last bit of my workout five minutes before the gym closes, when I'm up past midnight getting the last vital item checked off my to-do list. If that's not the makings of an Ironman, I don't know what is.

Then I'm going to think of my husband, who didn't even suggest that I wake up the next morning and instead just turned off the alarm and quietly got the kids off to school himself. Not iron, perhaps, but gold.