There is no going back…

Normal is what everyone else is and you are not. –Dr. Soran

In the movie Star Trek Generations, Dr. Soran is trying to get back to the Nexus, an energy ribbon that houses a dream world.  A world where every fantasy is your reality.  No regrets.  No fears.  No mistakes.  No chance or opportunity missed.  What Normal people would call heaven. Normal people want that.  It is where everyone wants to be.  But Captain Picard is on a mission to save the world and prevent the destruction of a world.  He recruits the legendary James Tiberius Kirk to help.  Initially, Kirk wants to indulge in all that he missed.  A long forgotten romance, the thrill of amorous pursuits, but when he goes to jump a creek on horseback, he realizes it is not real.  He doesn’t feel the fear he had every other time he jumped it.  He realizes that while that world is ideal, it is devoid of the challenge that makes life worth living.  (Skip to the ninth minute if you just want to see him jump ravine.)

That is what I feel when I just workout.  Training has some teeth.  It implies that failure is a possibility.  It contains the subtle threat that failure to train while your opponent does will lead to failure to perform in competition.  If you fail to workout?  Eh, who cares.  You can do it later.  You can be one of those Blue Pill People that like the illusion.  I can’t have that once I know the trick.  Once you have been to the puppet show and seen the strings, you can’t just go back.

I just returned from NASA World Cup.  This is eighteen years after I first went to this meet in Phoenix.  I once slept in the parking lot across from the meet hotel because I didn’t have enough money for a room.  That was 1995.  My current budget is not much greater, I still come home with change in my pocket and pride in my heart.  Then I was some no name kid with crappy form that knew it all and would repeatedly climb on the platform still wearing his baseball cap and without his singlet straps up.  That was my first introduction to numerous friends I came back to see at this meet.  Now I’m the old guy trying to help out that kid.  Knowing the “Yeah, I’ll try to work that into my program next time.” is the same one I would say years ago that meant, “Why is this old guy pestering me?  He just doesn’t know the newest ways to train.”  Its okay, son, I know there ain’t no school like the old school.  You’ll learn.  I did.

This was also the first time I have been to this meet since this heart issue crept up.  This was the first time I “can’t” participate.  This was the first time I was a spectator.  A little tough for me to take.  Sure I have been to meets since this issue came up.  But I have always lifted at every World Cup since my return to powerlifting, with the exception of 2005, when my daughter Mackenzie was born.  Add in the three years I lifted at it between 94-97 and that is ten times as a lifter at this meet.  Even when I was hurt, it was bench only.  Watching the meet was actually painful,  not because I miss the attention, the glory, or the praises of my fellow lifters.  But because there was not that fear that comes with stepping on the platform.  It is one of the rare moments that make you feel alive.  It is that rush that I miss.  This was always my big meet of the year.  The build up as you wrap your knees painfully aware of the lifter on the platform ahead of you but trying to pretend you don’t care and keep your mind on your own task.  My heart rate jumped as my turn came up.  I should have  been hearing my name called in the order.  ”Rich Kahle, you are in the hole.”  This is when I begin wrapping my knees.  ”Kahle is on deck.”  I’d finish wrapping my knees and be in final preparation mode for my lift.  As I watched the other lifter wrap his knees, I could feel myself mimicking his movements subtly with my own hands as I flexed my quads.  The lifter I would have followed hit his lift but they did not call my name.  No one in the room missed it but me.  My heart sank as it was official.  I am not lifting.  Until that moment, I had not missed it. I was content to rest on my laurels and smile and wave like the previous inductees at the Hall of Fame ceremony.  In that moment, I wished I was back on the platform.  I was planning on sticking around and watching bench press.  Nope, I wanted out.

I broached the idea of returning to competition with my wife this morning.  Does went over like a lead balloon mean anything to you?  I can understand her fears.  I have thought them out.  Would I be able to compete half speed?  Nah, not once I smelled blood in the water.  I get that crazed, adrenaline fueled frenzy like a school of piranha and go charging ahead with my hair on fire.  But really, could I just let go and attack things like I used to when it was my turn to chase the records?  No, I know I would pull back from the edge.  I would make a good show of it, push up to the guard rail, and lean slightly over to get a better view.  But I would not stand on it with my head leaning on the glass at the World Trade center doing my best Ferris Bueller impersonation without a care in the world.  I can’t go back and like Kirk, I would not be afraid of that ravine.  I’d know what I was doing.  I wouldn’t have that fear that made it such a rush.  Besides, it is a moot point.  No matter what the doc says, she wouldn’t sign the release form for me.

Skip to the last 20 seconds.

So, where does that leave me?  Coaching.  Those that can, do.  Those that can’t, coach.  I was wrapped up in coaching my daughter Mackenzie.  No one was watching me with her on the platform but while she was lifting but I was in the background “helping” as if my movements would somehow impart the force to the bar and make it go up.  Thankfully it was not needed.  As you can see, I was extremely happy.  Not as much a rush, but I could not be prouder.

Proud coach and even prouder papa...

She told me she wants to win more trophies than I did.  I would love to help her do it.  But even if in a few years, she becomes more interested in boys than barbells, I am just loving the hell out of sharing this time with her.  I am more nervous when she lifts than when I do.  And when she lifts it, I don’t get the rush of the lift itself.  I feel relieved.  I can relate to my dad saying to me, “I can’t watch you lift.  I am too scared when you are doing it.”  It is such an amazing feeling to watch any of my athletes break personal records and win trophies.  Watching some of my athletes grow because of the new confidence acquired from the sport, just as I did, gives me a greater satisfaction than winning trophies for myself.

Daddy's little champion

The greatest question in all of this is, why take the chance?  Why risk getting hurt or worse?  What have you left to prove?  The answer is that rush.  Nothing can replace that rush.  I miss it.  But like Kirk in the Nexus, I can’t go back to that real moment in time, that real place where fear confronted confidence and challenge faced ability, and I won out.   I may return to the platform, just to get back in the grind and, like a cup of Colombian with cream, catch a little rush to wake me up but that quad-espresso charged place is closed to me.  I can lead others back there but I can’t go there.  It gives me a chance to enjoy those moments of triumph I took for granted.  I can enjoy the successes instead of passing them like highway mile markers.  It is this achievement that matters.  What I did do not what I could have done.  It is now not the next time.  After only three of my meets have I ever been satisfied with what I had done.  One was the 1998 USAW Collegiate Nationals,  I won the Snatch with my best ever lift (135 kg) but dropped to fourth after the jerk even though I PRed the lift (155kg) and my total (290 kg).  After World Cup 2007, I hit big lifts on squat and bench and missed my final deadlift to break my total record.  I know you might say, “Satisfied with failure?”  But I knew I left it all on the platform.  I passed out on my deadlift still trying to pull it up.  No failure in that.  And again after Nationals this year.  I mentioned it in a previous post, I once again hung off the edge and lifted to the best of my abilities.  Forget the numbers, it was paltry compared to my best but that was the best meet I have had.  Until Saturday…seeing that sparkle in her eye that had long ago left mine when she was given her trophy made me prouder than I have ever been.  On the drive home, I looked over my shoulder once I realized there was no noise coming from the back seat.  Seeing this, I know why it is more rewarding to be a coach instead of an athlete.

So, I am going to have to settle in with the good, old stand-by, Costa Rican coffee called coaching but that doesn’t mean I won’t throw in a shot of espresso now and then for a little bigger rush…

I may be smarter and mature enough to know this but I ain’t never gonna be normal.  Give me the red pill, Morpheus.

If you need me,  I’ll be around.

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