The Day My Mental Challenged Me: National Capital Triathlon

The stats:

200m swim: 5:48 (Improvement of 1:40 over my best time!)
20km bike + T1: 57:34 for an average of 20.8 kph (I can do much better)
5K run + T2: 43:46 (again, I can do much better)
Total time: 1:47:06 (my best time on this course by about 2 minutes)

My plan was to do my first Sprint Triathlon at the National Capital Triathlon this year. However, after buying my wetsuit and realizing it's a lot tougher (mostly mentally, but also physically) to swim in open water, I started having doubts. I wondered if I was scared or if I really wasn't ready. You can never know for sure, I guess, but a week before the event, I decided to do the Super Sprint Triathlon instead of the Sprint Triathlon and this was one of the best decisions I've made this year!

The difference between the Super Sprint and the Sprint is the swim distance: the Super Sprint is 200m in shallow water whereas the Sprint is 500m in "regular" water. The Super Sprint swim follows the shoreline and the Sprint goes right to the middle of the river. Having had my share of panic moments in open water swim training, i knew it would be risky for me to do the Sprint. I was worried that I would have a panic attack once everyone was gone and I was all alone in the middle of the river. Knowing there would be kayakists nearby was not really reassuring me. After a lot of debate, I did a risk analysis and concluded that the likelihood of me having a panic attack was quite high and that the consequence of such a panic attack would be very high too.

The minute I made my decision, I started to look forward to the race rather than being scared and worried. That's when I knew I made the right decision. :-)

The race didn't go really well. I could list a few excuses, namely that my allergies have just gotten intense and that I slept 2 or 3 hours the night before my triathlon. These certainly contributed to the outcome of the day, but the real challenge during this race was to ignore "the mental" that wouldn't shut up. Seriously, the whole 1 hour and 47 minutes it took me to complete the race, the mental kept telling me how much I sucked and how I was an imposter. It told me it was a good thing I hadn't been stupid enough to sign up for the Sprint Tri. It asked me why I bothered spending money on race entry fees when I sucked so much: why not just train to stay fit and forget about races? It asked me who I thought I was, participating in triathlon races as if I was an athlete. It said I should DNF and I considered it. It whined. It told me to notice how poor my performance on the bike was, when it was usually my strongest sport of the three. It told me the run would be awful, because I haven't run much lately. It even told me I was so frickin' fat. Seriously, the mental was vicious yesterday.

My mind kept fighting the mental. It kept telling it to shut up and tell me to just keep going. It told me not to give up, that I trained for this and that I could do it, even if it was hard and even if I didn't reach my objectives. It told me to swim/bike/run my own race and not to worry about everyone around me. It told me that there was something to be learned from a difficult race, that I just had to keep trucking and that when I reached the finish line, I would understand what I had to learn that day. It told me to run with joy. It told me to appreciate the moment, because the weather was perfect, just like I had prayed for. It told me that it thought I had a good swim and that I may have done a better time than my other swims in Mooney's Bay. It made me notice the sign that said "Pain is just weakness leaving your body" and I visualized my "wimpiness" leave me. When it got really tough on the run, it told me it was OK to walk because it was such a difficult day. When my breathing was back under control, it told me to run just a little bit, one more step and one more.

Everytime someone cheered for me, it gave me more resolve to keep going and fight the mental. I knew I was doing the right thing and I wanted to defeat the mental, even if I hurt a lot while doing it. As I approached the finish line, I got angry at the mental and pushed as hard as I could (which wasn't much!) up the little hill before the last 50m to the finish line. It was then that Cynthia reached me. She made those last 50m much more enjoyable and much less focused on the mental. We say misery loves company, but I swear that company pushes the misery away.

Mind: 1 Mental: 0