Be Your Best

Todd Gifford, President of DEE – #746 at Start of Triathlon Race

Well, I finished!  It was not pretty, and at certain points is was probably down-right ugly.  But it got done — one personal goal met — a Bucket list item completed and crossed off the list.  I mentioned a while back that I was embarking upon my first Triathlon race event.  I have been training for the past 12 weeks to get ready to Swim, then Bike, then Run in one contiguous event.  The day came last weekend.  Very exhilarating and intimidating and humbling all in one package.  It never ceases to amaze me how you plan and practice for whatever it is that you will be doing, and sure enough, the things that you least expect are the things that go wrong.  At the beginning of my training, I was worried about the swim portion of the race, so I focused heavily on that — to the point that I was swimming in training regularly over double the distance that was involved with the Triathlon race.  By the end of my training, I was no longer worried about the swim, and instead more concerned with the bike portion after the swim.

On race day, I get up to the start line, take off and head into the water for the swim, and it was like I was doing a sport I had never practiced at all!  Probably a combination of nerves, the difference of swimming open lake water vs. pool, and all the other racers in the water — I was struggling.  I simply had not expected for it to be this difficult so early in the race.  At this point, I was concerned about just finishing the swim, let alone the entire race.  The only thing that seemed to help was that I mentally started breaking down the swim into little bite-sized pieces…”ok, just make it to the next buoy 50 yards away”…”great, now make it to the next buoy…” I felt people running into me, and occasionally, I would run into someone else.  Once I reached the half way point of the swim, I was absolutely exhausted and gassed.  This was not like my training at all!  I am sure that my training really did prepare me for this physically and mentally, but it sure did not feel like it half way through the swim.

It was at this point that I simply started to get angry at myself and I had to “bushwhack my way through my own cr@p” to get this thing done.  I could sense that I was in my own way and potentially preventing myself from reaching the goal.  Sometimes you yourself are your biggest obstacle, and you have to know when that is.  This being the situation, I refocused my energy on the goal, the end point of the swim vs. the process of getting there.  Now time started to move by a little quicker and I started getting closer to shore.  All perfect form and technique was out the door and it was all about getting to shore.  Hitting the sand beach, the swim was finally over.

In preparing for the Triathlon, I worked on creating a transition area layout such that it would take as little time as possible to put on my bike gear from the swim, and the same thing going from bike to run.  I never thought much about just “getting to the transition area” from the swim.  As I came out of the water, I was relieved, but running to my bike area was almost impossible.  Again, completely unexpected.  I was so happy to be out of water, though, it did not matter.

The rest of the race went pretty smooth, and I finished respectably in my age group.  Now that it’s done, I have more respect than ever for the long distance Triathlons and Triathletes.  It is something that I want to do again at a longer distance.  Probably the biggest lesson I learned during the race was that I was my own biggest roadblock to succeeding.  Things just don’t go as planned on the way to achieving goals.  You have to be prepared to overrule yourself when necessary.  And it may require a big stick!

Be Your Best,
Todd Gifford