The Jun­gle of Food Choices

photo credit: mmeiser2

“My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or suc­ceed shall be no man’s doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obsta­cle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my respon­si­bil­ity; win or lose, only I hold the key to my des­tiny.” ~ Elaine Maxwell

Body mark­ing.  Elites and begin­ners.  Tran­si­tions.  Run­ning shoes.  Wet­suits.  Waves.

Swim.  Bike.  Run.

Life…and Triathlons

Prepa­ra­tion, and Life

“Suc­cess must be felt within before it can be seen on the out­side.” ~ Unknown

The sport of triathlon involves three dif­fer­ent sports, all com­bined dur­ing one race.  Swim­ming, bik­ing, run­ning.  To find suc­cess in this sport takes prac­tice and ded­i­ca­tion.  And this all begins with the men­tal prepa­ra­tion in order to suc­ceed at the phys­i­cal chal­lenges.  Being excel­lent in only one of these three sports isn’t going to win the race for you.  Life Les­son:  In life, we have many things we do.   Those things are “won”, those things are improved in the dark hours when no ones watch­ing.  It’s that time out there, when every­one else is sleep­ing, watch­ing tele­vi­sion, going “through the motions” — that you become who you truly can be.  It’s in how well we’re prepar­ing our­selves — in body, mind, and spirit.

The Swim, and Life

The swim por­tion of triathlon is the most chal­leng­ing part of the race for me.  I con­sider myself a mediocre swim­mer, at best.  And even with prac­tice time in a local pool, I still find this to be the most dif­fi­cult por­tion of the race. 

• Dur­ing the first triathlon this sum­mer, a tragic event hap­pened.  One swim­mer, new to the sport, died of a heart attack while swim­ming.  This was a very sad moment to what was an oth­er­wise won­der­ful day.  Life Les­son:  Life is short.  And we never know when our time will be up here on earth. Seize the moments in your life that give you much mean­ing.  Live each day to the fullest.
• Dur­ing the first triathlon, I was chal­lenged in get­ting a rhythm that worked for me, slow­ing me down, and caus­ing me to revert to dif­fer­ent swim strokes in an effort to get a nor­mal pace going.  In the sec­ond triathlon, I focused on keep­ing myself calm to start with, and it all went much smoother.  Life Les­son:  Some­times in life, as much as we pre­pare — things don’t always go as planned.  And when that hap­pens, we can make adjust­ments.  Change for the sake of improve­ment.  And then when we find some­thing that works, use that as the barom­e­ter of how to do this in the future.

Tran­si­tion, and Life

Between each event, there is what is called “tran­si­tion”.  This is the place where you switch from swim­ming to bik­ing, and then again from bik­ing to run­ning.  Tran­si­tion is just as the name sug­gests — a tran­si­tion from one thing to another.

• I fin­ish the swim — exhausted, wet, bare­foot and shirt­less.  And now it’s time to find my bike and head out.  Get a drink, put on a shirt, hel­met, gloves and shoes.  And go.  Tran­si­tion­ing from one event to the next.  Life Les­son:  This hap­pens in our lives too.  Moments where we have to switch gears, maybe drop one thing and start another. And in these moments, we can some­times get irri­tated, frus­trated, angry.  Or — we can choose to have an atti­tude that is filled with abun­dance.  And in those moments of tran­si­tion, really let the expe­ri­ence of the moment “be”. 
• I fin­ish the bike — put on run­ning shoes, get some more water, a few bites of a nutri­tion bar and head out.  Life Les­son: Proper nour­ish­ment is impor­tant for our growth.  And this is more than just nutri­tional nour­ish­ment to feed our phys­i­cal bod­ies.  This is also men­tal and spir­i­tual nour­ish­ment to feed our souls.  Do this — all of this — and you will be on a path of hav­ing a body that is fed in so many more ways than just the food we eat. 

The Bike, and Life

 Two wheels, out on the open road.  My favorite por­tion of the whole event.

•  Hel­met or no hel­ment.  Gloves or no gloves.  Bike shoes or run­ning shoes.  Road bike or moun­tain bike.  Lots of choices.  Some things are required (like hel­mets — your head is worth pro­tect­ing!), some things add a level of com­fort (gloves, and bike).  Some things improve per­for­mance (bike shoes and bike type).  Life les­son:  In life, you’ll have deci­sions to make.  Some will be for your own safety and pro­tec­tion.  Oth­ers will pro­vide com­fort in your life.  And oth­ers will help you improve your per­for­mance.  All of these are impor­tant deci­sions, and if you can find some har­mony in your life, by giv­ing all of these areas focus — then you’ve reached a spot that brings the con­nec­tion of body and soul together.
• Some parts of the race are just eas­ier than oth­ers — based on ter­rain, per­sonal expe­ri­ence, and pref­er­ence.  Life Les­son:  In life, too, some things we do will be more enjoy­able and fun than oth­ers.  That doesn’t mean the “not so fun” parts don’t have to be done.  Maybe we forge for­ward our­selves and do them.  Maybe we bring in some­one else to do these things (we don’t have to go it alone).  In the end, it is all part of the jour­ney, and even in things which hold great mean­ing for us, there will be moments that aren’t our favorites.  And if it does indeed all mat­ter, then we’ll find a way to do this too.  And our jour­ney will continue. 

The Run, and Life

 The last leg of the race.  A 5K (3.1 mile) run, after just swim­ming and run­ning.  The end is near, yet still so far.

• Some courses are flat (the sec­ond triathlon) and some are not (the first triathlon).  Life Les­son:  In life, you’ll have some days that are easy, and oth­ers that are more dif­fi­cult.  Through it all, you dig deep in those things that mat­ter — and you’ll find within you a way to keep going.  Of those things which mat­ter deeply, the path, no mat­ter how over­grown or scary it seems, is so worth trav­el­ing down.  Keep believ­ing in you.  And keep going after all that matters.
•  Start­ing to tire, the run can prove chal­leng­ing after every­thing else that’s taken place.  Life Les­son:  There will be days where we’ll feel exhausted.  There will be moments where we’ll want to stop.  And in these moments, it’s impor­tant for us to real­ize that we have a choice to make.  Is it worth con­tin­u­ing on?  Only YOU can answer that ques­tion.  And in these moments, this is when we define what has the great­est mean­ing to us, and what’ s worth fight­ing for. 

Post Race, and Life

 The fin­ish line.  Com­ple­tion of the race, what an exhil­a­rat­ing feeling! 

• Cross­ing that fin­ish line, com­ing in at the crowd is cheer­ing you on — what an excit­ing fin­ish, espe­cially after moments that have been chal­leng­ing out there on the course.  Life Les­son:  Being out on the course, or being out there in life, doing our thing — this can some­times be the lonely or less glam­orous part of our life.  And then you reach the fin­ish line — you reach that spot you’ve been striv­ing for — what a place to be at!  And that’s one more step along the jour­ney, and one that feels very satisfying. 
• In the first triathlon, one of the com­peti­tors was an 83 year old lady.  Out there with every­one else, com­pet­ing!  What a shin­ing exam­ple of never giv­ing up.  Life Les­son:  There are prob­a­bly sev­eral life lessons we can take from “Agnes” and what she did.  For today — this young (at heart) lady showed that we can do what­ever we set our heart to — and we don’t have to be lim­ited by what the world tells us the lim­its are.  Set your own lim­its, and reach for the stars when no one believes except you.  And be so awe­some in it all!  You can!

Tri-ing Life

“Only those who will risk going too far can pos­si­bly find out how far one can go.” ~ T. S. Eliot

Life is what you make it to be.  It doesn’t mat­ter what your social sta­tus is, how much money you have, where you’ve been to, or how suc­cess­ful the world thinks you are.  What mat­ters is that which comes from the inside. What mat­ters is going out into your life, lis­ten­ing to your heart, and try­ing those things which have deep mean­ing for you.  Life is full of so many pos­si­bil­i­ties, for each one of us. 

“Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you.” ~ Dr. Seuss
 

Go out into the world today.  Be you.  That deep-down you that is your soul!  Let it shine.  Let YOU shine!

Spe­cial Note:  On Wednes­day August 12^th, at 7 PM CDT (GMT — 5:00) — I will be inter­viewed on BlogTalkRa­dio by Amy Jewel of Cirkla.  I’ll be talk­ing about what blog­ging has meant to me and how it has evolved as I’ve been doing this.  In addi­tion, I’ll also be talk­ing about an excit­ing and fun project I have com­ing up within the next two weeks. 

UPDATE:  A recorded copy of the inter­view is avail­able, and can be found right here.