My first triathlon is a little more than a week away now. I must be in a philosophical mood, because similarities between the race and life keep appearing. Every time I coach myself through an element of potential anxiety about the race, what I hear is advice about life. Such as, "Don't worry about how fast you're going, just find a strong pace that you can maintain," or "It doesn't matter what other people are doing, or if you win a prize, it matters that you finish, and that you have a good time doing it." See? Also, "If you say 'wheeeeeeeeee' when you're going really fast down a hill after a long climb, you might swallow a bug." I don't know how this one applies to life, exactly, but I can tell you from personal experience that it's true. I rode my bike home from work in Napa the other day and had several close bug encounters.
The triathlon, like life, is made up of mini-races, mini-obstacles, and each must be approached afresh, with determination and optimism. It may be a fifteen-minute swim, an hour bike and a half-hour run. Or it may be three five-minute swims, two thirty-minute rides and three one-mile runs in my mind. I can drag myself through the swim, for example, moaning internally about the icky lake water and the elbows in my face, or I can try to congratulate myself every minute for finally, after all this time, doing it. The swim itself is just part of the race, and before I know it, it will be over, and I'll be on to the next phase, then the next. I'll never be in exactly the same place again. See? It's just one big giant metaphor.
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