Fear Factor

(Written on 8/20/09 via Fundraising Page Blog)
Its been two months since my last post - its not that I've been negleting training or fundraising, its been because for the past two months life has become a litany of sleep-work-eat-swim-bike-run. Rinse. Repeat. With the race only a month away, it was a good time to look back and see what's passed. Sacrifices? You name it, everything changes - sleep, personal time, work, pain levels, daily exhaustion, and personal relationships.

The fear doesn't change, however. That nagging doubt in the back of your brain that you may not be able to do this. The third mile of the run... that fourth hill on the bike that never ends... But personally for me, its been open water. That first moment you look up and realize that there is nothing to hold onto for at least 100 meters. The water is dark and murky and deep, and you can't get the gagging sensation of salt water out of the back of your throat. My chest feels like an elephant is sitting on it and my wetsuit is suffocating me.

I breathe long and slow and think back on that one moment you reach in the pinaccle of training. It's the moment all the coaches talk about where you just "get it." When something just clicks and you smile with the AH-HAH expression. Its capturing the perfect stroke and you are no longer swimming but flying in water. Its getting the exact sync of an upward and downward pedal on your hardest hill. Its getting the right stride and the perfect push off the balls of your feet and running through the pain.

This AH-HAH may last long after the "I got it!" moment, or disappears in a heartbeat and you spend the rest of your training chasing that one high. Whatever the case may be, when fear decides to become the monkey on my back, I cling onto to my one AH-HAH moment and keep moving. Forward is usually the best direction. And if that monkey is still hanging behind me, I just flip over and do the backstroke.