Beginner's Luck

There will be no Ironman in my race schedule this year. Nor will there be a half Ironman. My friend triathlon was becoming a foe. It was time for a shift.

Making my decision not to race at this point has meant giving up my right to a registration refund. In truth though, I received good value for my investment, as having both goals kept me focused on being active and healthy during a stressful time. Certainly it was my aim to be toeing both the IMUSA and Tupper Lake starting lines and while a part of me is disappointed most of me knows that not racing was the right decision. I do not feel as though I have "quit." There are more important things in my life right now to attend to. As my list of other things to do mounted, the training and racing became less fun. Indeed they became things I felt obliged to do and no longer looked forward to. I recognized the symptoms from my "should I retire from swimming" days. I thought it better to call a spade a spade now, thereby preserving my passion for the sport of triathlon rather than dragging things out and perhaps killing it.

By all the usual standards I was having a decent year despite the reduced volume in training. My first sprint was only two minutes off my effort from last year. My Rideau Lakes Ride days (180km rides back to back, Sat and Sun) were both at 6hrs with end of the day speed averages of 30km/hr both days. I survived the traditional Ironshuffle followed Saturday’s ride, for me a 1hr20minute run, much to my surprise. Day-two killed me, though, and despite discovering that I was mentally tough enough to get the job done, I had no fun doing it. There was not a free mile in the bunch and I finished hoping it would be a while before I had to get back on my bike again. This is not the mindset I wanted to have six weeks out from an Ironman. Despite my fitness, I knew that my heart was simply not in it. Of the many lessons learned along my Ironway, it is that triathlon requires a great deal of heart. You can have all the gizmos and gadgets, get all your homework done or even not, but if your heart isn’t in it you are looking at a very long day. I didn’t want something I loved to turn into drudgery. It was time for a new plan.

According to the children our new house is now a home. To get it to this point, I have built furniture, fixed plumbing, had help with my garage, sewed, planted, painted and purchased. I have met new neighbors and made sure that my children found friends to play with. Now they are telling me in a myriad of ways that it is time to relax and play. So play we shall. We decided to take up mountain biking. We set aside our fancy BMX, triathlon and road bikes and in their place are riding used mountain bikes. Who cares? We’re having fun. I am the "sweep," meaning I take up the rear. I am grateful for this place in the pack for I am the weenie amongst us. Trust my middle child and second daughter to say to me as I walked up yet another hill this weekend, "Hey Mom, this isn’t quite like doing an Ironman is it?"

I always liked George Sheehan’s idea that of all the things he wished he could do and be, he wanted mostly to return to Grade-5. Children’s natural ability to play far surpasses anything we grown-ups can come up with. At this age, they have the beautiful gift of being able to laugh out loud oblivious to the world of social mores, responsibilities and timing. They simply laugh when things are funny. My children are no exception. Each of them in their own style has always had a wonderful sense of fun and funny—sometimes despite me. Whether they are enacting the Snapple commercial in unison in front of a campfire, lipsync’ing songs or putting on "plays" they are hilarious. So I decided to recruit them to my team as "play" coaches. I am determined to have fun in light-hearted ways despite being a grown up and mother of three, despite the fact that I pay bills and have a payroll and despite the fact that I am getting on in my years (according to the kids).

So my new to do list has things on it such as: find days to hit the beach with the kids; learn to mountain bike; give roller-blading a try; cycle the kids BMX track (I chickened out last year for fear that I might end up with something broken prior to IMUSA); sew more creatively and less functionally; catch up on the unfinished book club books; garden; and play monopoly and cribbage more. I promised myself that I would only swim, bike and run if and when I felt like it. Initially, I didn’t do much of anything. Then a funny thing happened on my way to fun—I missed my swimming, biking and running and discovered that I was already having fun. I play at my sports. I always have.

Of all the pictures that were taken of me on Ironday last year, outside of my finish line photo with the children, this is the one I love the most. It’s me at play, the play I have always loved, swimming with the big boys. Indeed if truth be told, I have always taken tremendous pride and delight in being able to keep up or better yet, go faster than those bigger than I. This likely has its roots in the fact that I grew up with two brothers (no sisters) and hated to get dropped at anything! Thankfully, I was also blessed with the ability to giggle and swim fast at the same time. This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but then you’re not likely to find me curled up much in front of the TV or getting involved in live theatre. These just aren’t my idea of play. These activities just don’t leave me with a quiet, grown up version of my children’s laugh out loud sense of play. This is my play, grown up style.

So for the next while, I am going to return to sport not as something that has to be crossed off my to do list but rather as something that leaves me feeling like I can’t wait to get out the door to do it again, that leaves me with a bug eating grin on my face even if I am struggling to get up a hill. I am going to hang with my kids as I always have but this time, I am going to try to do as they do. I will learn from my sporting life and my children to laugh out loud in a great many more places.

Still Tri’n