Lessons from the half ironman distance experience:
I hated that we were going to have to swim in cold water-never liked a wetsuit: they always feel so constricting. In the weeks preceding the event, I got in my wetsuit several times and swam in my pond. The water was cold. At first I dreaded the cold ice water face wash so much that I would find almost any stall to postphone getting with it.
Event morning was cold. The practice swim verified that the water was cold. But something was different: this was not another training day in my pond...today was the day.
The whistle blew, we ran into the water as I waved to my wife. Somehow I knew that it would be OK. Somehow I knew the cold water didn't matter-I was in. I was all prayed up, mentally, spiritually ready to take whatever the day brought. The water got a little deeper and I put my face into it and swam. It was cold but I was warmed to the occasion.
There are scary times in life when we have a choice whether to procrastinate and postphone facing our fears or to just have wade off into water, put our face into it and move on.
It wasn't just the cold water that I feared in this event. There was the hilly bike ride I was afraid of using up too much of my energy and legs on. There was the run that I had no idea about how I would feel going thirteen miles off the bike. But it was the day, and thank God for the strength to just put my face into it and move on to the finish line.
"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius,power,and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
I'm so happy for you that your experience was all that it should be, needed to be, could be. I can hear the transformation, even in your writing voice. Congratulations on going the distance, getting up off those ropes, soldiering on, and even keeping humble through it all.
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