This is my eighth Ironman race report. The past recaps all have a similar feel, something like:

“I trained really, really hard over many months for this one-day event. It took on significant meaning in my life, and there are now profound lessons learned through a long day of swimming, biking and running that I can apply to my career and interpersonal relationships. The weather challenged me, the competition was fierce, and I discovered something new about myself. I placed relatively well, but not good enough to quality for the World Championships in Kona. That’s OK, I’ll get there one day.”

What if none of that was true?