bar exam v. ironman

I was emailing back and forth last night with one of my law school friends who also happens to be taking the bar tomorrow when he informed me that 'he has never been this nervous' in his life. I tried to by sympathetic, I really did. And I thanked my lucky stars that I have done things that seem a whole lot more scary than taking some little test.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a little nervous. And I'm really looking forward to this all being over, but this doesn't rise to the level of 'scariest thing ever" for me. No matter how badly this goes, it is not going to hurt me physically. I'm not going to drown or crash or end up in the medical tent with an IV in my arm. After 2.4/112/26.2 the bar exam seems a little tame.

But there is a downside to the comparison. The great thing about Ironman is that even at its worst, you know it will be over in one day. It may take 17 hours of pain and suffering (or in the case of my last one, 15 hours of pain and suffering and delerium followed by a car ride and a trip to the med tent), but at midnight that night, you are done. Tomorrow night I will be exhausted and grumpy ... and only halfway done!

In the days before Ironman you are always questioning your preparation but you learn to set those fears aside, because at this point, there is nothing you can do about it. Please believe that that is a useful lesson to have learned going into the bar exam. There is absolutely nothing I can do about the last two months. While I think my preparation went pretty well, there are a few things I would do differently if I had to go back and do it all over again. Does that matter now? Absolutely not. What's done is done and the only thing I can control is where I focus my energy for the rest of this evening and what I put on paper tomorrow and Wednesday.

Think happy thoughts for me ... I think I will need them!