Hmm..where to start. Well, I was born on July 10th, 1984. Ok, maybe that's a little too early. But I WILL start with my first triathlon, Ft. Huachuca's Steelhead Sprint July 9th 2011. I remember the date because it was the day before my 27th birthday. My friends stayed with me at my parents house and after a very (un)restful night's sleep we headed out all together to the race to be there at 5 am. I had given birth to Ruby, my 2nd child 5 months prior, so had been training since April. Before I started, my goal was to finish and not be last. Yay! I met my goal! When I crossed the finish line I felt like I had accomplished something pretty cool, something I had always wanted to "tri" badum...tsssssh! However, as the results came in I suddenly felt a crushing sense of failure. There were 9 women in my age group and I had placed 6th. Why wasn't I first? What had I done wrong that they hadn't? Suddenly my insecurities came crushing down on me too. I didn't belong here, theses people were real athletes, I could never be a "true" athlete who eats healthy food and disciplines oneself to really train. I walked away feeling like I had failed.
Next up...Hummingbird Tri the next month. My goal? Beat my old time. I did and placed 2nd in my age group. But of course it wasn't because I had done anything to achieve that, it was because there were fewer athletes...and slower athletes. Felt pretty great to get a medal, but still didn't feel like I had succeeded. All of this, might I add, while my husband was gone to NM for BP training. Still not good enough.
So, what did I do then? Nothing. Stopped running, stopped biking, stopped swimming. Why? Just tired I guess.
A few months later my coach Jen, asked me to help with a race in Gladden Farms. A half marathon/10k. So there I sat, checking people in, again feeling like a failure for not training and running with them. Never had I wanted to race so badly but I knew it would be a disaster. So, I walked away feeling like a failure....aaaagain.
So January rolled around and I got a message from a friend that a team member for their Ragnar relay had canceled and could I fill in? The leg was a total of 19 miles and I had been running..oh, let's see...about ZERO miles a week. So I asked Jen if I could do it? Duh...J.Lowe can do anything.
So I trained and raced and wasn't a complete failure. I felt like I had done great! I ended up running much faster than I had anticipated, and while I still felt insecure and out of place, it was good times. In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to do an Olympic tri but wasn't sure about when/where timing etc. I started training for Deuces in April but still hadn't signed up and was kind of dilly dallying about wether or not I was really going to do it. Then one day, I just decided I WANTED to do it, so I was going to, the end. I don't remember exactly the context of our conversation but Jen said something to me once about not just doing a triathlon, but doing WELL. That stuck in my head along with many other things she says nonchalantly that I end up chanting to myself as I'm training.
So I trained for what felt like an eternity. Turns out my sister-in-law was also training to do the 70.3 distance and was going to do it at Deuces. This started to add to my "failure" complex when friends and family would hear about her doing the "longer" one and me the "shorter" one. Why wasn't I doing what she was doing? If there was a competition she already "won" because she was going twice as long. I know these comments were in jest but being the self-beater-upper that I am, it was starting to wear on me. Maybe I should have just done the 70.3? Why, when the Olympic at first glance seemed like such an excellent goal, was it now appearing to be less than stellar? Because I was making my goals about OTHER PEOPLE and not about myself.
Giving birth, undergoing surgery, surviving with a 2 yr old and 6 month old for 13 weeks by myself were not things that these "other people" had to do! It's very difficult when so much emphasis is placed on "winning" to feel like I had succeeded when I didn't beat EVERYONE. The first question people ask after my race, "How'd you do?". I knew that the Olympic distance was the goal I had set for MYSELF and was ok with that. No matter how much teasing I got from my brother. So, I wanted to do MY best and not worry about ANYONE else. So I trained the best I could, ate the best I could (ha ha ha), and was ready to kick some butt come race time.
Noah and I shared a room with my bro and his wife. Her race started at 6am so we arrived to set up our transition areas at about 5 even though my race didn't start until 8. I was happy to have the opportunity to see my friends off on their 70.3 race and get "in the zone". Just before I got in the water, I realized I didn't really have a goal for this race other than to win. Not wanting to set myself up for failure, Jen and I decided my goal should be to finish under 3 hrs. So I put my watch on and got ready. I started in the back of the pack for the swim which was a bad idea as I kept swimming into people and couldn't really get into a rhythm very well. So then I started swimming ALL OVER the place. I had practiced open water swimming only twice and thought I was pretty much a pro. WRONG. If you can picture a hyper two year old running around a room covering every possible square inch with their feet...that was me in the lake. Ok...maybe not that bad but definitely not what I had planned. I ended up getting out of the water 7 minutes later than my goal that I was hoping to destroy. So I thought I had pretty much screwed it up. But what could I do? GO FASTER
I had set up my transition area in a spot that I thought was prime. Wrong again J.Lowe, I had to run all the way through transition and then loop back around to the front where I originally was to exit. Oh well. I was very paranoid that I was going to get a flat and said to myself "please, please, please don't get flat" to my tires as I started riding. It appears they listened to me. So I just started riding as fast as I could without burning out my legs, which pretty much sums up my bike ride.
Got off the bike at 2:09 which gave me 51 min to run 6.2 miles. All that was going through my mind the whole time was "faster, FASTER!". So I started out fast but "conservative" as Jen told me to. As I passed the one mile mark my watch read about 8/min miles and I started to get excited thinking I could do it! So I ran my little booty off hoping I was going in the right direction. I passed quite a few people that had passed me on the bike...SUCKAS...and had the delight of crossing paths with some of my friends that were doing the 70.3, thanks for cheering me on yo! At about mile 3 when I was just coming up to pass someone I squirted a goo into my mouth that was more liquidy than what I was used to and proceeded to choke and stop breathing for a couple seconds. I was worried this person I was chasing was going to slip away and I would be on the side of the road unconscious. But all was not lost, and my breathing quickly returned to normal minus the burning throat. At mile 3 I "kicked it into high gear" as they say. I WANTED to finish under 3! As I was coming up to the 6 mile mark I saw my watch was at 2:59:xx. This is right about the time I saw Jen yelling something vulgar at me. As I came around the corner sprinting I saw the clock read 3:06 and was a little disappointed but ok with it considering how badly I botched my swim. After crossing the finish line I realized the clock was 4.5 min fast due to the men starting before us and my time was 3:01:xx! Yipee! In my world that TOTALLY counts as meeting my goal. I was very happy. Once my brother told me they hard starting posting the results and went to check to make sure I hadn't accidentally broken any "rules" and gotten a time penalty. Little did I know I was 3rd in my age group! I'm pretty sure aliens in outer space could see the sun reflecting off my smile as I ran up to my coach holding up 3 fingers. Noah's excitement when I told him I was 3rd made it all worth it!
So now I'm pretty much a celebrity and my peeps are treating me to full body massages 24/7. Ok maybe not. But I have come to the realization that I am the only one that will remember my time, my experience 10 years from now and it really doesn't matter what anyone else did that day because I met MY goals and did MY best. Onward and upward people!
1 comment:
You are awesome & I loved reading this! We all compare ourselves to others way too often and I am glad I am not the only one who does it :) I wish we lived closer to you so I could meet your cute babies.
xoxo
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