Iron Jack

“Don’t think about how far you have to go - think about how far you’ve come”, Lee-Anne, 27 May.

And it’s so very true. I called Lee-Anne after my ride in the forest yesterday - it was meant to be 15km and about an hour. Once again I got lost, it was probably about 20km and it took me 90 minutes. And it was scarey! I think that was the worst part.

Mike and I are doing the RATS (Rotorua Association of Triathletes) winter duathlon series which starts next weekend. There is a short course and a long course. The long course consists of a 5km run, followed by 15km mountain bike on forestry roads and single trail, and then another 2km run. Or thereabouts anyway. According to coach, I’m doing the long course.

So yesterday I thought I’d tackle the mountain bike for the long course. Oh my god. Hard. Actually it probably wouldn’t have been that hard if I hadn’t already gone 20 minutes in the wrong direction uphill. No, the real problem was the Tickler trail which is halfway through. It’s meant to be Grade Three but I swear it’s more than that - cycling on narrow ledges on cliffs, skinny bridges, I was feeling panicked, tired and sore.

“Lee-Anne, I’m just calling to tell you I won’t be doing the long course next weekend.”

“Why not?”

“Because I just about killed myself several times by nearly falling over cliffs. And I can barely walk, let alone do the run that goes with it.”

“And? Still not hearing a good reason.”

It was about this point that I started feeling a bit ashamed.

“Jack, you have to push yourself outside your comfort zone, it doesn’t matter how long it takes, it doesn’t matter if you come last, it doesn’t matter if you walk, all you have to do is finish.

“You are doing great. Don’t think about how far you have to go, think about how far you have come. This time last year would you have just got off a 15km bike ride?”

And she’s right. A year ago I literally would have struggled to get to the shops in the village. Now I can comfortably run 5km, swim 2km and bike 25km. If you had told me I’d be doing that a year ago I would have fallen over laughing. Now I can do it, and I’m going to do Ironman as well.

Thanks Lee-Anne.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Bike, Motivation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.