I think at this point that it should seem really obvious to me but I am constantly amazed at how closely connected my experiences in endurance training and racing are to my experiences in the rest of my life. More specifically, I am amazed at how the lessons I learn in training and racing triathlon translate so directly to the lessons I need to learn in confronting the challenges of my day to day life.
Suffering has a cost, but also has rewards
I talk a lot about how triathlon saved my life by yanking it out of the clutches of diabetes. But almost more importantly, triathlon saved my life by teaching me that suffering is not inherently bad; it is simply the currency of growth. I say this not to minimize anyone's particular experiences with suffering: there is a lot of suffering in the world and there is also a lot of pointless suffering. I believe the only appropriate response to someone else's suffering is compassion. But in many cases, if we can learn to pay attention to ourselves without judgment, our suffering can teach us exactly what we need to learn and can become our most effective incentive for growth. And this is a lesson I learned exclusively from endurance sports.
Lessons from deep in the pain cave
I will always remember my first experience with real triathlon-related suffering. I was on the really, really hilly 10k run course at my first Olympic/international distance triathlon in Pinehurst, North Carolina. I still remember the run course description on the SetUp Events website: "the run course is tough." Given the universal propensity for race organizers to downplay course difficulty in the course descriptions, I should have been much more scared going in to that race. But ignorance is bliss and this was my first real race of any kind of longer distance so after 1500m swimming, and a moderately hilly 30 mile bike, I was still pretty surprised at how much climbing I was doing in the first mile or so of the run.
Olympic distance tri at that point was a super long distance for me. I had been training with Kelly for less than 5 months. As the hills kept accumulating on the run course, I started to hurt very badly; well before the halfway point on the 6.2-mile run. With only five months of training, the hills simply felt like too much for me, I had to walk up almost all the hills. I forget what my pace was, but it was slow. Every mile marker took forever to hit. I honestly did not know if I would be able to make it to the finish; by mile 3, I was all alone and the last one on the course but I kept saying to myself that “all you have to do is not stop. If you don’t stop, eventually you will get to the finish line." So whether I was running or walking up a hill, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other over the remaining miles to the finish. I was pretty deep inside the pain cave of my mind. The physical and mental suffering was intense.
But eventually, I turned a corner onto the street that led back to the park and I could hear the crowds at the finish line but I couldn’t see the finishing arch behind the trees. I checked my watch and saw that I was only 2/10ths of a mile from the finish, but I still couldn’t see the finish arch or any of the crowds. For a split second I had this terror that maybe there was no finish line and maybe I would just have to keep running forever because I couldn’t stop until the finish and there was so finish so...... It was such a silly thought but after 1500m swimming and 30 miles biking and 6 miles running it seemed to make sense at the time. But I said to myself often and repeatedly, "all you have to do is not stop and you will get to the finish". And of course I did. It was right behind the trees just a few steps away at that point. And God bless the triathlon community who waited around to give me huge cheers for a very proud DFL (dead ____ last) finish in 4 hours and change.
I did another Olympic distance tri after that and a half ironman, but I think I learned more in that first Olympic distance race on that single run course than in anything else I have done (including the half-iron).
All you have to do is not stop
I instantly learned two incredibly important lessons on that run course: the first lesson I learned is that all you have to do is not stop. It is so simple, even though it is not always so easy. And I use that lesson in every single race and on every single long ride and long run in training. And I have also started using it in my day to day life. I apply that lesson when I have had too busy a week of work to make it to the gym, or have a whole week of bad workouts, or am really hurting at the end of a long ride or long run, or have been injured. It is okay to go slow. It is okay to slow down. It is okay to walk the hills. All you have to do is not stop.
The best "why" is because you matter
The second lesson I learned is even more important and has helped me in every problem that I confront in my life: that I matter. After a lifetime on the couch, and ignoring my own needs and getting diabetes and then reversing diabetes, it was on the run course at Pinehurst that I learned the secret to motivation -- the secret to how to keep going when your muscles and your mind are begging you to stop. I learned that I was worth it. I was worth putting up with the pain to get to the finish line. I was worthy of finishing the race. I was worthy of saving my own life by conquering the diabetes. The feeling “worth it” part started somewhere on that run course at Pinehurst in May 2016 and then took a long time to keep developing all the way throughout that year. I had a lot of times during the year when I wanted to quit. But there is something funny about being alone and in pain on a run course at a race and needing to run another 3 or 4 miles in that pain so that you can finish dead last. You really have to decide whether or not you think you’re worth it.
My first trainer Jim Guimond always says you need a really big "why" to keep a life of fitness going throughout the years. My "why" changed a lot over the first 2-plus years after my diagnosis. But I wish now that I had used "because I am worth it" as my “why” years ago, before I got sick. I now believe that the best “why” is “because I am worth it.” And I had to suffer a lot to learn that. And I used both of those lessons many times since, especially on the run course at IRONMAN 70.3 North Carolina that October.
Kelly's note to me before IRONMAN 70.3 North Carolina
I am profoundly grateful for every hill on that Pinehurst run course and every ache and pain I had in that hour and twenty 10k. And I still never cease to be amazed at all the ways that realization of being "worth it" changed other things in my life.
Now, more than a year and a half out from that experience at Pinehurst, I have started to realize that whenever I'm suffering in some other area of my life, there is a lesson hidden not too far below the surface. And when I can remove myself a little and observe it with some objectivity and with less judgment, the lesson appears, and I am more often able to intuit what I should do. The necessary beneficial change then quickly follows. It's not pretty and it's not fun, but suffering is the currency we pay for change and growth. Think about it. Suffering is so inevitable in life. We may as well get the rewards since we are already paying the price.