Deeper Reason For Doing Triathlon and Endurance Sports

I wrote this yesterday in a tread and then re-posted it in my blog....thanks for the opportunity to get some more mileage out of it.

Why I tri

I'm 6'3" and was 293 lbs this past Sunday at my last triathlon.  I haven't always been this heavy but I've always been tall.  When I was a kid in school and we'd chose up sides, I'd often get picked first because people ASSUME that, because I was big/tall, I must be good in basketball or football or whatever.  But I sucked at basketball.  I sucked at football.  I can't hit a damn slow pitch softball much less a fast pitch baseball!  So participation in sports was non-existent.  I didn't play ANY organized sports in grade school, junior high, high school or college.  Nothing! 

Years later I found myself at a slow pitch softball game with the guys from work.  I showed up to drink beers afterwards but they expected me to play ball first.  I struck-out at my first at-bat and someone laughed and said I “threw like a girl”.  OK, this was a mistake; I'm never doing this again!

Then when I was 33 years old I was in the gym lifting weights and walking on the treadmill.  A good friend encouraged me to run on the treadmill and said there was a 5k at the airport on the runway that many people did for a PR since it was such a flat/easy course.  So I set a goal of running 3 miles.  I trained for months on the TM - never once getting out on the road.  Finally race day came and I ran my heart out.  It nearly killed me but I ran the entire 3.1 miles.  I don't know what my time was and didn't care; my goal was simply to run the whole thing and not have to walk.

About a month after that I saw a flyer in the gym for a sprint triathlon...the Rocketman.  It was a triathlon!  OMG!  I had heard about triathlons...I thought they only did that in Hawaii.  I had no idea they had shorter ones.  It had a 5k run and I was confident I could do that since I'd just run a 5k.  Bike ride of 12 miles didn't sound too hard - I'd been riding a bike since I was kid!  The swim had me a little concerned but I grew up around the water and swimming came easy.

And so I became Rocketman!  I did the Rocketman every year for the next 5 years.  I loved the Rocketman because I had finally been able to participate in a sport and not have to feel bad about letting my teammates down because I had no athletic talent and sucked at all sports. 

I still can't hit a baseball and can't make a free-throw to save my life but I do triathlons.  I love to run.  I love to bike.  I love to swim.  And I'm finally able to participate in a real sport.  Yeah, I still suck at it but that's ok.  When people see IMKY poster on my wall and asked if I did that, I just nod.  They don't ask "how fast" or "what place did you come in" and I don't volunteer those. 

So for me, it is about the participation not the podium.  I don't care if I ever get faster.  If I busted my arse the best I would ever be would be mediocre.  I don't swim intervals or use pull-buoys or paddles.  I just jump in and swim and enjoy being one with the water.  I don't run intervals or do speed work or hill work or repeats.  I just go out on the road and run and enjoy being outside in the fresh air in this beautiful world we live in.  When I ride, I just get on my bike and ride.  Sometimes I weave between the reflectors on the road like I used to do when I was a kid.  And maybe once or twice a year I'll show up at a race with real athletes and act like I belong in their club.

~Mike

I like pace booty

Yay! Let's start yet ANOTHER 9-page thread about how people who don't do triathlons are pathetic losers!!

Seriously. Do them for whatever damn reason you please. How about simply because it's fun? That's my rule for anything - do it if it's fun. When it stops becoming fun, don't do it anymore. That part can be tough due to pressure and expectations from other people.

Two reasons:

1.  To make up for my lost athletic dreams in childhood.  I was always good in our sandlot football games in grade school, but when the time came to play for real in Jr High, I was a "late bloomer", nerdy and too scared to try out.  Spent the next 15 years of my life on the geek/nerd/nonathletic track...

2.  Training is the one thing in my life that I can control.  I'm contractually stuck in a job I don't much like, working for an organization I don't much like, living in a part of the country I wouldn't pick for myself. 

Endorphin junkie? 

Addicted to the "Ironman Diet" (i.e. eat whatever you want, you'll burn it off)? 

Friendships developed in this sport? 

A chance to see sights that most people don't?  (Starlit skies, beautiful sunrises, amazing back-country roads)

Some parts of the tri lifestyle are like an amazing sunrise, summer lightning, or thundering waterfall (that's the "epic" stuff you're describing).  Most of the time, it's like the gradual lightening of the dawn as we go from darkess (not aware of our capabilities) to overcast morning (that additional 0.1 mile that makes the run your "longest run ever" )  in barely perceptible increments. 

For me, it isn't so much about seeing what I can do (I can do just about anything I choose to do) but deciding what I AM going to do. 

Tri's specifically?  No.  Really just fitness and fun and to compete with myself.

But maybe when it comes down to a few of the more "endurance" events like the IM...the deeper reason is to prove to myself that I can do it.  To give myself a goal and achieve it.  To challenge my body and come out the other side possibly wiser and more experienced.