Last Chances.

I have a tendency to think it's always my last chance to do something. My family makes fun of me for it. I went through a stage just after I graduated from high school and before I went to college, when every time I asked to do something and my parents hesitated or said no, I would protest with, "But this is, like, my LAST chance to go ____ with ____ before ____!!!" (Imagine a really whiny teenager, and multiply by ten.)

It's become a family joke by now, and whenever we feel like doing something, we'll use the "could be my last chance" template. For example, "We better go to Cheesecake Factory--this could be the last chance to go on a Tuesday in Louisville with just the four of us." (when my parents were here). You get the idea.

Anyway, I can joke about it but I really do suffer from immense anxiety about missing out on last chances.

I have wanted to do a half ironman at some point in my life. Last summer I was supposed to do a shorter tri but backed out because I moved to Louisville, in part because all my training buddies (some of the young women from church in Alabama) also backed out when they couldn't figure out how to get to Nashville, where our race was supposed to be. Anyway.

But I don't always back out. I finished a sprint tri in 2009, then an olympic tri in 2010, and then another olympic in 2011. And then I whimped out last year. I really, really don't want to turn into someone who talks about doing things and then doesn't. But I'm afraid to say I'm doing a half ironman, because it seems like it'd be pretty easy for SOMETHING to come up and get in my way of doing it. I have that "last chance" feeling, though. Don't know why.

Can I just say I'm doing it? I already found an event three hours away (Muncie, Indiana) on June 1st. I already wrote up my training plan for the next 4 and a half months. My training plan starts THIS WEEK. I am shopping around for gyms with pools. I asked Chad how he felt about my spending a chunk of our money on the race (he approved). I am relatively serious about this, but scared. Oh, but I just have to do it! It really could be my last chance...before what? Oh, I dunno. It just could.