You don’t need to be super fit to do a triathlon. It’s all a mental game.
This past long weekend Sarvoday Bishnoi and I did our first Triathlon! I am not going to lie if I tell you how many times I wanted to give up. We started training in January, on and off and we were not that strict with our meal plans and training. Some weeks were good some weeks were terrible. I gained about 10 pounds during this time, as I was anxious that I wasn’t ready enough.
The day before the race, I was so close to switching to a sprint, and was hopefully wanting Sarvo to change too, but he didn’t he was determined to finish what we originally signed up for, an Olympic Triathlon (yes folks, our first triathlon, and we went for the most extended one 1.5 swimming, 40 km biking, 10km running). Sunday came in, and I was so excited, started with the swimming 1.5 km. I had 1 panic attack at the start, I guess it hit me:
“OMG, I am doing a freaking triathlon, what if I can’t do it?” Then I said to myself, “yes you can Ale, you have trained in open water, you can do it, just take it as one of the training days. Focus on finishing this part. Don’t think of the rest.”
I came out, and a lot of people had already started biking, this was hard, I felt that swimming was my strongest one of the 3 parts. But I grabbed my hybrid bike (yes, we didn’t buy a fancy bike)and went on. This whole time I was thinking Sarvo was way ahead of me, who knows when I will reach him. As I am biking, I am thinking how on earth I am going to bike 40 km!! I guess I will just turn around at the 20 km mark, then Sarvo came behind me and told me.
“I was the last one swimming, I have a plan, and we will finish.”
At that moment I thought omg, I am so proud of him, I can’t give up. I have to continue. A lady came behind me (the people that make sure that everything is ok) and I was so slow that she thought that I was making a sprint, and followed me up to the 20 km mark, and I kept going... she started screaming telling me to stop to not go further than I needed to. I would see Sarvo from a distance and said I am with him, I am doing the long one.
Most of the bike ride I was alone, kept seeing people coming from the other side, and thanks to the volunteers who kept encouraging us to keep going to do our best I kept going. I thought this one is for Nicaragua, they are having such a hard time and they keep going, I have to keep going. I can’t stop. The whole time, I was like just focus on finishing this part, then worry about the rest, and that’s how I managed to finish the 40 km biking, the last 10 km were so hard, my butt was so sore, the biker who was checking that everything was fine, was right behind me, telling me:
“ You are doing great when I did my first triathlon I got off my bike on the tough hills.” I said, “if I get off my bike I won’t be able to get back on.” I kept thinking, Sarvo didn’t give up I have to stay, this is one goes for my grandma and my mom who have always worked their asses off. I was the last one in to come in with the bike, and at that point, I knew I was going to be the last one on the race.
As I really had hardly any energy left to run 10 km, a lady asked me, are you going to do the run? I was like I was thinking of doing the 5km instead, can I still do the 10 km? You have 2 min to make it, next thing I know I was running the 10 km path. I kept saying to myself you can’t stop if you stop you won’t be able to keep running..but then the hills came I had no more strength to keep running so I walked and ran when I could. And then I finished it! It was pretty emotional as I thought nobody was going to be there, and everyone clapped when I arrived, and the best part is that there were still pancakes! Just finishing the triathlon was my goal and I accomplished it.
Thank you Dynamic Race Events your supportive volunteers and welcoming environment made this crazy goal a bit easier.
This experience taught me that you should never stop believing in yourself, your body is capable of doing much more than you think, and to just focus on the next part don’t overwhelm yourself with all that is ahead. So if you want to do a triathlon, do it, I did it so can you.
🏊🚴🏃
