It has been a long time since I've written. For good reason. I have been utterly unmotivated and uninspired as of late. A big mental challenge that I've had to deal with. My body aches, my workouts seem monotonous and October seems like it is taking its good ol' time to get here. But something happened this weekend. After last week where my thought process was more like: "I have to work out, grumble, grumble, grumble. This sucks." and not "Yeah, I LOVE training for this triathlon" It was a pretty low point. On Saturday though, I did my second brick. For those of you new to triathlon speak: brick = training for two consecutive events in one time period. Exhausting in every sense of the word. My first brick attempt worried me. My breathing was heavy, think 65 year old smoker who starts wheezing when he walks from the kitchen to the dining room. Mentally, I wanted to bag it. This was last Monday and the thought that I wanted to quit anything made me angry and it totally set the tone for the week.
But I digress, back to Saturday, we did a swim lesson then a 3.5 mile run. I felt great! Sweaty, but great. This was the first day I felt like I was a little faster in both events, and I felt physically stronger. Then yesterday I did a 16 mile bike ride. Four miles more than our race day mileage, but the longest distance I've ever rode yet. A personal triumph that made me feel like a million bucks. The difference between this weekend and the week of grumbling: my attitude. I was determined not to give up. I started to convince myself that quiting was not an option. Just a little more. You can do it. For whatever reason, I feel renewed and empowered. Empowered, you ask??? No one but me knew about my mental and physical fatigue last week, and I pulled myself out of it. Pretty sweet.
Cheesy motivational quote: "I think Western culture has it backwards. We equate comfort with happiness, and now we're so comfortable we're miserable. There's no struggle in our life, no sense of adventure. I've found that I'm never more alive than when I'm pushing and I'm in pain and I'm struggling for high achievement. In that struggle I think there's magic. Unless you're pushing yourself, you're not living to the fullest. You can't be afraid to fail, but unless you fail you haven't pushed hard enough. If you look at successful people and happy people, they fail a lot, because they are constantly trying to go further..."
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2 comments:
Good job. Very well written. Can you use this as a writing sample for grad school?
As a witness to your run...you definitely kicked some butt. You set the pace! Hope we're doing it next weekend as well!
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