Terrance, THIS Is Stupid

I have a tendency to buy stupid . Even in high school, when I was given money to buy my own clothes, I tended to buy the most ludicrous, of-the-moment thing in the mall. Case-in-point: The "I've seen Elvis" shirt, immortalized in the panoramic senior class picture. Thank God Marzipan ripped my copy to shreds a few weeks back; too bad some nimrod had to go scan and post the thing on Facebook. But I digress.

Last night, the powers that be finally got around to announcing Ironman Texas. The full 140.6 event will take place on May 21, 2011, in the township of The Woodlands. Entry opens up tomorrow at noon; and Jason, Derek, and I are again debating registering. The catch, for me, again, is money. Now, Derek did rightly point out that logistics & such will be both cheaper and easier than that of last year's excursion to CdA. Registration fees, on the other hand, have gone up nearly $100 since signing up in 2008, which leads me back to my reason for writing.

Ironman is owned by a corporation, and is a brand name akin to Xerox or Coke; and, like any corporation, they want money. My money. What they give in trade is the opportunity to race on a hopefully well-planned, well-supported race course. This was the case for CdA, and I would expect no less for Ironman Texas; the eyes of the triathlon world will, instead, be upon Texas. In spite of the star treatment and being proclaimed "an Ironman!" by whatever his name is, I find myself having a hard time rationalizing that much money for that one race. I am closer than I have been in a while to paying off debt. N has a new car to pay for and still manages ample charitable donations and substantial savings. I feel I would not be pulling my fair share by registering for this race. True, I get "free" money for some of the workshops I'll be doing this summer, as well as money from the DATE grant for meeting targets for TAKS; but that is money that can be used to pay down debt. To pay for grad school. To save for a house. To do something more than swim and bike and run. I can do that here. For free. Besides, I am an Ironman, even if it is over my self-imposed 12-hour time frame.

Since starting this post, I ran into Jason & Rodney. Both have plans to register tomorrow at noon. According to Jason Matt & Andrea (neighbors to Jason) have plans to register too. All are expecting me to register as well. Truthfully, I want to, in spite of every indicator saying "no." while, physically, I should be in some of the best shape of my life, fiscally, I still have a long way to go---more than 140.6 miles, and step one of training is saying "no" to buying in to name brand like this. Let's see if I'm up for the challenge.

Thanks for reading.