As I mentioned before, I am competing in a half ironman triathlon this fall. A half ironman consists of three legs: a 1.2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run...totaling 70.3 miles (you've see the bumper stickers...now you know...). A good half ironman training program consists of approximately 20 weeks of hardcore training. My 20-week mark begins in June. Tonight I started mapping out my training because I wanted to see where I need to be at the beginning of June.
Wow. All I can say is...wow! I anticipated that it was going to be a ton of training. I knew what I was getting myself into; however. tonight, as I was creating a spreadsheet for my training, I got to actually see it in front of my face. As I was typing out the schedule, for every Saturday, I was able to enter the word "rest" into the schedule. For 20 weeks, I will only be able to "rest" on Saturdays. Wow.
This got me thinking about the reasons that I am doing this and how excited I get when I start training for a race. At the same time, I became incredibly overwhelmed and intimidated. I'm wondering what it is that helps strike a balance between the feelings of intimidation and those of excitement. What is it about training and racing that keeps me smiling? Why am I able to take the feelings of anxiety, that in almost any other situation get the best of me, and turn them into fuel for running harder, biking longer, swimming faster? What is it about racing (running, mostly) that makes me so excited? Why does it win out over intimidation?
I'm not sure that I will ever be able to figure out why I can do this in these situations, even though I fail miserably at it in other situations (ahem--dating...); however, I am happy that this is the case. I am never afraid to try a new race or register for a new challenge. As a result, I have repeatedly had the amazing experience of crossing a finish line. If you haven't done it...you should try it sometime, nothing beats it!
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