How to Go from Ironman to Sad, Squishy Psychomaniac in One Week

No previous depressive experience required.

How is it possible to go from this feeling:

(Yea! I finished! I rock! And yes, that is the TriathleteDiva jersey, now available at TriathlonLAB!)

To this feeling:

(Ahhhhhhh!)

in only one week? (With a 2 year build up.)

By studying these simple steps, perhaps you'll be able to avoid any/all of them altogether to maintain the unflappable emotional levels of a happy-pill addict.

Or, perhaps, if you're like a certain someone around here, you'll follow them exactly because you enjoy life in all of its extremes. Even if the lows bring on an unending need for chocolate and a subsequent ballooning tummy squish.

1. Sign up for an Ironman. Spend one year training. Feel ripped.

2. Get engaged. Become obsessed with wedding TV programming.

3. Complete 1st Ironman. Feel like most bodacious person on planet.

4. Buy wedding dress. Attend many subsequent fittings. Feel like princess.

5. Sign up for Ironman #2. Begin plan to cut previous IM time to shreds.

6. Get married. Feel like most bodacious person on planet.

7. Go on honeymoon. Feel like only and hottest woman on planet.

8. Return to fabulous gifts with a glow.

9. Compete in Ironman #2. Revel in new PR. Feel like most bodacious person on planet.

10. Flatline one week later.

Why flatline? This is not an inevitable reaction to the end of 2 years dominated by monumental goals involving loads of planning and selfishness. However, final ginormous goal completion leaves a gaping void in the future called the “unknown” that has been proven to cause anxiety, which cannot currently be blasted away with training, as the recent Ironman’s body is broken, so it has chosen the next-best anxiety-busting remedy, as proven by the ancient Aztecs: chocolate. In all of its glorious forms.

And when said Ironman comes to think of it, becoming a chocolate connoisseur is not really a bad side goal for training downtime. Another Ironman will pop up soon, again becoming a shield for any unpleasantness thrown her way in the year leading up to it.

Maybe Ironman is my happy pill.

For more on post-Ironman depression, a condition that actually exists and that this Ironman did not, in fact, make up, even though she realizes she makes up a lot of things, go to this article at Ironman.com. And for an article on post Ironman blues by pro triathlete, Jason Shortis, go here.