84 Days

A friend on Facebook is racing Lake Placid on Sunday.   Seeing her transition bags and pictures of training and the venue literally brought tears to my eyes.  

She also had two pictures of note cards with quotes.   They were:

"To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift." -Steve Prefontaine

"We all have dreams; In order to make dreams into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, self-discipline, and effort." -Jesse Owens

It was this friends post that pulled together my recent struggles and has led me to a little clarity.

My last post was a little over a year ago and it was titled BALANCE.     With the help of some friends, I got back into training.   On November 4, 2014, I signed up for the full distance Beach 2 Battleship triathlon.

2014 was the year I was signed up for St. Anthony's olympic, Raleigh 70.3 and Chattanooga 140.6.   I completed none of those races.  After the DNS at these 3 triathlons,  I was extremely hesitant to sign up for Beach 2 Battleship.

Why? I am afraid of not being able to complete a race.   I am afraid of getting hurt again, I am afraid of the voices inside of my head telling me I can't do it or thinking about work, I am afraid of just not physically being prepared.

An injury kept me down in 2014 and although its significantly better (I can ride my bike!!!!), it's not 100% better.   I wish I could blame my fear on my injury, but that's not where its coming from.

I feel uncomfortable with BALANCE.   I want to give 150% effort to something.   Most of my energy is towards work at this time.   Although I need my work outs for stress relief, I tend to want to get up and start working - it's hard to turn my work brain off.   I also do NOT like that I can't focus more on training.

Although I have improved, I continue to struggle with my commitment to training.   I beat myself up about my lack of motivation and lack of consistency.   Last week, I was really struggling during a run - in fact, I had myself so worked up I couldn't run much.   I just couldn't breath.   I was, of course, thinking about work.

I thought "How are you going to do a full distance triathlon in less than 3 months?"   "You can't do this."   "You aren't committed."   Can't. Can't. Can't. Can't.    Then I told myself that I didn't want to do the race anymore.

The fact is I have literally been afraid to commit.   I am so afraid of not being able to complete this triathlon without training like I did in 2013.   I am so afraid of failing, I haven't even given my full effort.   I'm not even giving myself the chance to succeed.   Because of my fear, I am not giving my best effort.

The truth is, I want to cross that finish line after swimming 2.4 miles, cycling 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles just as much as I did in 2013.   I want to prove myself that I can do this.   I want to prove to myself that even though I hate EVERY MINUTE of BALANCE - I can do it.

I am done sacrificing the gift and the joy that comes with training, accomplishing goals, and completing a triathlon.   I am done letting my fear limit my ability to achieve something I so badly want to achieve.   Today, I commit to stay focused, determined, and give my best effort every day to be balanced.

In 84 days, I will cross that B2B finish line… and the dance will be unbelievable.