Why?
The right answer was, "work for you". My reply, "Open a bar in Greece." I was being 100% honest. At the time, that struck me as the ultimate job description. All the grog you can handle and a steady stream of Northern European beauties coming through town. What could be better? Well, despite his better judgement, I got the job on the strength of my studies (not my interviewing skills!). I rolled into London and worked there for four years. I had two main redeeming features in the eyes of my bosses, I was dirt cheap and willing to work all hours. Aside from the office, my main interest was drinking with my Aussie buddies. I excelled at both pastimes. That bar would have to wait but we did have a great running gag about opening the Club Felacio. About two years in to my London stint, I started to get itchy feet. I decided to apply to business school. The guys at the office convinced me to stay by cranking my salary up, it was coming from a very low base. This worked fine for a year but those feet got itchy again and I started thinking about my departure strategy. I had taught sailing as a teenager, and decided that it would be very cool to sail around the world. So I learned navigation, and bought myself a boat. We had a great series of tours around France, Belgium, the UK and the Netherlands. That was a lot of fun and kept me fired up for a while. I researched everything I could about tides, currents, trade winds, cruising routes, etc… I built up a great sailing library and started running the numbers on how long it would take to get the cash together for the trip. Towards the end of 1993, I had the opportunity to come out to Asia with my company. I accepted the opportunity and found myself living in Hong Kong in the Spring of 1994. Work was totally new and very interesting. My girlfriend at the time moved out with me but didn't really like Hong Kong. It's a very tough town if you aren't working. She left (never to return) a few months later. Those itchy feet came back, and I started hiking around the territory. I learned about volcanoes in Indonesia and started mini-peak bagging. This was a lot of fun. I would research all about the peaks, approaches, flights, ground transport and then hit them commando style (very light, minimal time). Sometimes solo and other times with friends. No tents, no stove, just water tablets, Gore-Tex and a very strong desire to summit. On the way back to Hong Kong on one of those trips I decided to see if I could climb the Seven Summits, pure ego. Kilimanjaro was the easiest so I did that next. It was an amazing experience. Several other expeditions followed. The feeling on a mountain is totally peaceful. For me, it is one of the purest things in the world. Pure physical activity combined with a deep emotional calmness. Exercise seemed to feed something in me and I gradually lost my urge to get hammered all the time. It seemed like a fantastic trade. I started riding and running to build core endurance for mountaineering. I didn't realise what I was doing, I just liked exercising. I had been a "fat kid" and had this huge drive to get fit that was coupled with a fear of being fat. Fortunately, I was also born with a strong urge to eat. If I was female, then I am not sure how I would have ended up. I can certainly relate to how folks end up in "exercise traps" and eating disorders. In the Spring of 1998, I married Angela. In the summer of 1998, I went on my last mountaineering expedition (Denali). It was one of the best experiences of my life. The climbing was actually pretty easy but the energy expenditure required to get up the mountain was far beyond anything I had ever completed. I loved it and I thrived on the mountain. A feeling that I have always had since I was about 15 years old, was that I was born for hard, manual work. It just feels right to be active. Angela wasn't all that keen on my mountaineering, and I gave it up. With the mountaineering binned due to my wife's fears of my being cleaned out in an avalanche, I had a huge void in my life. I started running more and training for a local ultramarathon. I had DNF'd this race back in 1995 and I wanted to make sure that I made it this time. My research skills came out. Surfing the Internet, I found huge amounts of training info, and also stumbled into a newsgroup about triathlon. There were all these people talking about a race called IMC - Ironman Canada. Well, I had run that far and was pretty cocky about my endurance. The only thing that scared me was the swim and that really scared me. I hit the pool on my own a few times and tried to swim 100s. An absolutely killer workout was 10x100. Well, September 1, 1998, my application to IMC was posted, and my life would never be the same. I managed to get through my ultramarathon in November and then started to train for the biggest, scariest event of my life, an IM swim. I remember my swim coach's face when I told him that I was training for IM. His look said it all, "you got no f***in' hope buddy". Fortunately, my confidence in my abilities was greater than his. I persevered. At the beginning of April, my name was pulled from the IMH international lottery. This really didn't seem fair to my new tri-pals (my tri-history at that point was one sprint race three years prior). I resolved to "earn my slot" and focus on the training. I had a coach and he was helping me figure out what needed to be done. May was the Wildflower Long Course. I validated my Kona slot and realised that I had some potential in the sport. When I got off the bike, no one passed me. I finished around five hours (middle of my AG) and was totally stoked. This little write up is heading into my tri-history and that is not the point. Over the months of tri-training, my body changed and finally I had the physical appearance that I always desired. Frankly, I looked better in my pre-tri, weightlifting days but I "felt" better in my tri-body. I liked everything about tris. Exercising all the time, sports physiology, mental toughness training, gear, technique drills, planning my season, you name it. As well, I was able to travel around the world collecting races. As an added bonus, I could sleep in a hotel instead of a snow cave. Throw in all the great people I met, it seemed like a fine way to spend one's life. About the same time, my marriage ended. No need to go into the details on the World Wide Web!!! We are still pals and have managed to sort things out with a minimum of hassle and personal grief. Getting divorced was a unique learning experience about the difference between "what society says" and "what actually is". It's not until we were married, that we realised that we didn't really need to be married. In particular, society defines much of a woman's self-worth into the whole wedding industry and for some/many? that is an illusion. I strongly believe that self-worth, like happiness, needs to come from the inside. An event, a new car, a promotion, heaps of cash - all are great but ultimately empty if the happiness is not coming from the inside. Coming through my divorce, I did a lot of thinking about what makes me happy. Ultimately, I decided that "heartbeats make me happy". This is a bit of an oversimplification but the phrase makes me smile. Basically, I realised that what I truly enjoy, deep down, is physical activity. Any sort is good but triathlons seem to be better right now. This is probably because they can never be mastered, and have unlimited potential for goal setting. So, why did I agree a twelve month leave of absence? Why not continue working and racing around the world? The itchy feet haven't returned. I am very content in Hong Kong, but one thing is missing, companionship. I thought about buying a dog to assist on this front (no joke), but with a little bit of thought, I realised that this is a poor compromise. So what to do? Well, I could get out more, but most of the people that I meet in HK are a long way from my lifestyle and outlook (hell, most people in the world are). So it's time to hit the road and travel around. I have no idea what is going to happen, but it is going to be ,and I will meet lots of new people. Three times in my adult life I have moved to a town where I knew next to no one. Each time it has turned out to be a good experience. If you see me at the races then come up and say hi. gordo - 30 April 2000 |