Last week I was planning my weekend long run and advertised a 10 miler on the triathlon club’s web page to see if I could get some company. Morgan, a member of the club, informed me he was planning a hill session for that day and invited me along. So, against my better judgement, I agreed to join him for his 6 repetitions up Oxford’s killer hill and then tack on whatever I needed either side to make up the distance. As we were jogging around the scenic uni parks, recovering from our henious hills, I discovered that not only is Morgan training for the same race as mine, he will complete a FULL Ironman (4km swim, 180km cycle and then a marathon) 6 weeks after our race. More impressively I found out that Morgan was around 35kg heavier this time last year and only took up swimming and cycling in December. After he had shared the details of his extreme training plan with me I asked him what drove him, in other words WHY? Morgan really enjoys the training and finds the improvements in speed and performace satisfying. Fair enough. Then I started to ask myself why? Why do I drag my butt out of bed before dawn to practice not drowning in the local pool? Why do I spend a good proportion of my weekend training and the rest of it recovering? I big part of it for me is that I am eternally running away from the fat kid I once was. I remember being distraught as a child because (thanks to very informative bullies) I knew I was fat and I had no idea what to do about it. Now that I am a lean, mean triathlon machine (ahem…) I realise that a large part of the reason I continue to push my body to its extremes is because I never thought I could. It’s a “see I CAN do this!” type of thing and I’m telling myself this as much as anyone else. I never want to be that little chubby girl, puffing my way to the finish line at school athletics days, always, unequivocally dead last ever again.
As I was struggling my way up the last immense hill, trailing behind four superiorly built men on our 70km cycle this Sunday, another reason why came to me. I realised that for the past 3 and a bit hours the only thoughts that had crossed my mind were: “fuck my legs hurt”, “oooo that’s a lovely view” and “not another fucking hill!”. Yes there was a lot of cussing. But for several hours there were no looming exams, no to-do list, no gigantic sum of money to raise in a seemingly short space of time, no homesickness, no missing my family and my boyfriend. There was just pain, exhiliration (on the downhills) and fine views. So I guess that’s another reason why: escape.
Apart from escaping from things (the fat kid and the mundane realities of life) triathlon training is also a journey toward things. In the last 5 months I have gained the skill of not drowning (I am still hesitant to call it actual swimming), I have made new friends, I have raised a fantastic amount of money for an incredible charity and I have discovered some damn fine countryside around this little city.
There are lots of reasons why, and with just 6 weeks to go til race day it pays to remind yourself of these reasons. and for those of you still unconvinced, I’d like to ask you a question: why not?
