A DAD'S LIFE:They understand that having a love for an activity is normal, writes ADAM BROPHY
I’M SUFFERING post-event withdrawal symptoms. It’s awful. I wake in the morning, roll out of the bed, stare at the wall and wonder what it’s all about. What’s the point, working, raising kids, staying married, mooching around? What’s the point now the half Ironman in Galway is over?
For months, I rejigged everything around this one event. All travel was scheduled so as not to coincide with key training sessions or shorter races.
The missus grew to realise that the training schedule (stuck to the fridge in pride of place over a smattering of watercoloured stick men and other child offerings) was the oracle. If a christening or a wedding coincided with a race in Belgooly, pass the proud parents my best.
At no point did I threaten to compete anywhere near the top spots at these events. I’m there, somewhere halfway down the list when the results are posted in the inevitable community hall afterwards, elbowing other middle-aged men out of the way to see if I beat Tim or Joe on the bike leg and cursing that the legs just can’t pump any faster on the run. It doesn’t matter that I’m not winning these things, it just matters that I get to beat someone. To satisfy this need I sign up for every race within a 60-mile radius and usually a whole lot more.
So, when the World Triathlon Federation announced last year they were bringing the Ironman brand to Ireland, I was on the early-bird bandwagon, fees paid and promises made. The trash talk started pretty much immediately. Which old man was gonna crush which other old men. And women. We’re equal opportunity mediocre crushers.
All year was focused on this one race, much like your living room furniture is focused on the TV. You don’t admit the telly rules the room, but if the cable goes kaput, it doesn’t matter how plump those Ikea soft furnishings are, you’re sitting in the kitchen.
Finally, race day comes. The heavens open. More than 2,000 people swim, bike and run in a biblical torrent. It finishes. It’s over. We strip out of damp lycra, our sodden paunches freed, and we all go home, satisfied we’ve got some crushing out of the system and been unwilling crushees to others. Post-race analysis and pints take us through the following 24 hours, but then we all must leave and face the long road home.
To nothingness.
“What am I going to do now?” I ask the elder despairingly.
“You’re gonna concentrate on me,” she says. “You’re gonna buy me things and take me places and we’ll do things together. Don’t worry Dad, it’ll be fun.”
“Will I get to crush anybody?”
“We’ll find something for you.”
I could easily take her happy decision that now, finally, we’ll be able to do things together without me going all slackjawed and staring off into space, daydreaming about wetsuits and carbon wheels, as an indicator that I may have been neglecting her over the past few months. That would be a fair assumption to make, but it would be wrong. You see, what the elder got, that most other grown-ups don’t get, is that becoming near-obsessed, definitely focused, about something beyond work, family, your house or your car, is crucial.
She gets it because that’s how kids are. They get involved in a sport or hobby, GAA or bodypopping in the garage, and it consumes them. When they’re practising a solo or spinning on their head, it doesn’t matter that they don’t live in a palace or get chauffeur-driven to school.
Well, those things don’t matter to them anyway, but the point is they get involved in what they’re up to, to the point that little else makes an impact. They still go to school, get their work done, scream when they cut a knee and need cuddles, but they need to get back to the ball or the music and feed their hunger.
She didn’t resent the fact that my focus was obviously elsewhere. Occasionally, she or her sister would shout that I’m always “working or training”, which I take as a cue to slow up, check what’s going on with them and pay a little attention. But despite having no comprehension why you would take part in a sport where most people will beat you, they acknowledge that having a love for an activity is normal. And if my keeping active encourages them to stay moving, everyone’s a winner.
