"Announcing your plans is a good way to hear God laugh"- Al Swearengen: Deadwood

Today I used my USA Triathlon member number for the first time.  To register for the Eighth Annual King of Hill Triathlon at Tombigbee State Park, in Tupelo, Mississippi; June 29, 2013.  Now I have a deadline.  I'll need all my triathlon crap in one place by then.  Bike, wetsuit, and decent running shoes.  Oh and I'll probably need to be ready to swim a half mile, bike 20 miles and run 3.2 miles by then as well.

I've got some goals, like lose 100+ pounds, reverse some health issues and become fit.  I'm on my way to achieving them but these are goals that lack hard deadlines.

I've got a big long term goal with a deadline, the Iron Man 70.3 in April 2014, but that's a long way off, (sometimes it seems like it will be here tomorrow, but still).

I needed a closer deadline to make this all get real.  So we're off to the Tupelo KotH; I just paid the registration fee and booked the hotel room for this, my first triathlon, so this is real. 

Deadlines are a big deal.  I know, because it was one of the few things my father ever taught me on purpose.  Allow me to explain.
My old man is a word Nazi.  He was a national news reporter, a White House Correspondent, Bureau chief and giant sized donkey about words.   I remember him screaming at my learning disabled sister when she was 11 or 12 because she misspoke a word.

My younger sister was trying to diffuse a fight between me and the old man.  She realized we were fighting about something that we had gotten wrong.   She made a courageous move and interjected herself into the argument.  She said "Stop, stop fighting it's just a misunderstand-ment",   He turned on her and screamed "ING, ING! it's a misunderstand-ing! you retard!"  Ah, the good old days.  Words were important to the old man.

I remember the day he explained to me the meaning and history of the word "deadline".   I had missed one for a junior high school project and got into trouble.   He gave me his best "I have nothing but contempt for you" look and launched into a description of the Civil War prison at Andersonville.

Andersonville was likened to Hell.  If you don't know about it take a quick wiki excursion.  Click here .  The word "deadline" was coined there.  There was a line painted about 20 feet inside the fence, called the "dead line".   Anyone crossing or even touching this "dead line" was shot without warning by sentries. "That's what a 'deadline' is son" the old man explained.   He always made the word "Son" sound like "Shit".

I was 13 , and was already sure I could take him if it came to it, so I said "You think Mrs. Humphreys will shoot me in the head tomorrow during 5th period, Dad?"  I had mastered making "Dad" sound like "Dick".  Rolls off the tongue.

I did however take away a new appreciation of the concept of a "deadline"; Not just a date or time before which something must be done but a line you don't cross, no matter what.   Absolute accountability, no excuses, do or die. 

For 25 years I have used that story in my business life to explain the deadline concept to employees and co-workers.  Well let me be honest, I told the story partly to explain where the term deadline comes from and partly to get some "man your dad was a dick" sympathy.  Also to mitigate my own dickishness, "Well of course he's a dick, do you know about his dad?"  But I digress.

I have a deadline. April 2014, I will finish the Iron Man 70.3 race in New Orleans.   I will finish or die trying.   And now a new closer deadline,  I will run in (and finish) the Tupelo King of the Hill June 29, 2013.  50 days from today.

This will help me get to my big goal of Iron Man 70.3.  I also have a plan, with goals and targets along the way.  Think of goals and targets as the lesser included offences of the deadline process; Un-indited co-conspirators if you will.  Here are a few of them:

• On or before the last day of July  I'll be able to swim 1000 meters,
• On or before the last day of August I'll be able to  bike 40 miles,
• On or before the last day of September I'll be able to run 5 miles.
• On or before the last day of  November I'll be able to: Swim for 30 minutes, bike for 90 minutes, run for an hour.  
• I'm going to run my first half marathon (13.1 miles), January, 11 2014 in Jackson.

So to update we have three milestones, with deadlines.

• The Tupelo King of the Hill Triathlon June 29, 2013.  
• The Mississippi Blues half Marathon January 11, 2014 in Jackson 
• Iron Man 70.3 New Orleans April (date to be set) 2014. 

I'll most likely add another triathlon in the fall.  I'll see how the King of the Hill goes and we'll move on from there.

Are you listening God?  I'm announcing my plans, so laugh away!

I will run them all.... Or I'll.... well, or I'll be really embarrassed on the Internet.  I mean come on, It's not like I'll be shot in the head by a malnourished Confederate soldier in a Georgia POW camp.  Actually about half the prisoners died of hookworm, malnutrition and dysentery so a bullet to the head was kind of humane.