“Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other…”
I am perplexed. As I am in my fourth week of training, I have tried the whole “courage” thing (a healthy dose of “Eye of the Tiger”), but, unfortunately, I am not sure whether I have the “wisdom” to know whether my inability to complete a triathlon is something that “cannot be changed”. I am try, I really am - I am working hard, training four to five days a week. However, I keep hitting walls at the 40 minute to 1 hour mark, which make me question whether I will be able to compete in a triathlon for 3.5 hours.
Enter Beatriz. This past Sunday, at the first Team-In-Training training meet up, I ran 3.1 miles at a very nice clip, but I was completely beat afterwards. After cooling down and relaxing a little bit, I was ready to head back to my car and head home, when Beatriz, a woman who I met at the Team-In-Training kickoff event, came into sight. I haven’t asked Beatriz for her permission to write about her, so I will err on the side of under-disclosing personal information, but what I can tell you is that if you met her you would NEVER(!) guess that she ever completed a triathlon. She is in good shape, but she does not look like a triathlete, though she completed her first triathlon last year. She completed the triathlon in over five and a half hours (the vast majority of competitors finish in between two and a half and three and a half hours). FIVE AND A HALF HOURS – I can’t even imagine pushing my body as hard as it can go for over an hour, yet Beatriz had the mental and physical fortitude to do it for almost a quarter of a day. Anyway, as she neared me, I asked her if she was done and she replied that she was going to run a little farther…
…Apparently, I was not done for the day. I joined her. We ran a little more and I got to learn more about Beatriz’s experience last year, her motivations to compete (e.g. - setting a good example for her teenage daughters, improving health, raising money for LLS, etc.). We ran a little more and I learned about how training changed her life and her daily routine. We ran a little more, and as we did I felt less and less formidable and more and more inspired. I accidentally jogged another 2.25 miles with Beatriz.
So right now, my goal is to finish the triathlon in five and a half hours – Beatriz promised me that I would definitely be able to do that.
