I suppose a lot of things.
The Friday afternoon before the event, I paid for the competition and Saturday after work, I hopped on the first bus down to the swim. I cringed when I realized that once again, I got on the same bus that I had gotten on last year: the one that had stopped and picked up every single person on the highway for the 190 miles that was the length of the trip.
With resolve, I got on the bus, opened my power meter book and buckled myself in for a very long trip.
It was nighttime when the bus rolled into Bacalar. I had gotten myself a cabana about two blocks away from the event and against the suggestion of the lady giving me directions, I went walking the eight blocks by myself through the dark, lonely streets of town.
“You’d better take a taxi,” she had said.
She was talking to the person who used to go running at 11 o’clock at night through the streets of the Historic Center of Mexico City only because it was easier to run without all the people and the traffic of the streets. The person who used to go to an area called Neza, outside of Mexico City, where even the residents of the area would be scared to wander by themselves. The person who would walk home late at night, all the while thinking of easiest ways the Wüsthof kitchen knife in her bag could be wielded to cut and disarm quickly.
There were very few people in the streets, everyone glued to the tv and watching the US-Mexico game. And as I listened to the excited cries of “goooool”, I looked up and saw a sky full of stars and the distant clouds, marking a long broad stroke across the horizon.
I felt very small before the grandeur of nature.
I passed a dog that growled and barked at me. But I kept my pace steady and didn’t even turn.
I’m the Alfa. Back off and step down.
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Early that next morning, I was at the event, getting ready. I strapped on my chip, got marked and basted myself with sun block, waiting for the start. Aline lead a small group of swimmers in a stretching session.
When I put my hands on my neck and pulled my head gently forward, I made a startling discovery:
I forgot to shave.
How inconvenient.
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It was Janine’s first competition and as we stood on the pier, waiting for our heat, fear darted through her eyes as she asked several times what the route was.
The men started first and were out the gate. The women jumped in next and I gripped Janine’s hand and told her this was just the pool and all she had to do was swim.
I held her hand until the horn sounded.
“Go!” I cried.
I kept at an easy pace and sighted the buoy.
Relax your hand. Hit the water at mid-length. Once in the water, extend your stroke. Chin on your chest. Look straight down into the water.
I went through all the corrections in my head as I swam, when I realized that my stroke was the product of all the different people who have helped me become a better swimmer.
I am the product of all the different people who have made me a better athlete.
And I thought about people like Michael Phelps, Alberto Contador and Samuel Bolt and know that I will probably never swim, bike or run like these athletes. I can't butterfly to save my life. I bike okay. My run is progressively getting better after a knee injury. But perhaps that is what makes one extraordinary. That simple notion that we do it because we can. Because we do not fear the task at hand. Maybe we are not the fastest but we do not just sit on our laurels, talking about it.
And we are all extraordinary, not because we are the fastest but because we try to be faster than we presently are.
And I am a better athlete because I have had people who cared enough to tell me what I was doing wrong.
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Four laps. Why do they put us through this torture?
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| Montblanc Etoile |
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| Montblanc Meisterstück Carbon and Steel |
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| DSquared Women's Fall-Winter 2011 Show |
The last buoy.
I was in the home stretch. And in a moment of clarity (tinted with what most would call masochism), I thought to myself that had I my Cannondale, I would have the strength to bike 100 km immediately after this.
I knew that I was a decent swim sprinter but that once I hit the 35 meter mark, I start to cave. I waited till I got close enough to let it rip when I saw the two red buoys: the ones I had to swim between and that I totally overshot.
Shit.
I had to swim back and in between the buoys. And then on to the finish line.
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Did I "win."
I won another day to swim when I used to be frightened out of my wits of the deep. I won another day on my bike, when I didn't have one before. I won another day to run because I didn't always take care of my knees.
I won another day to be healthy and in one piece. And that's what it all boils down to.
And so when I got out of the shower, foregoing the awards ceremony, and looked at the text from Esteban saying that I had won third place in my category, I didn't know what to think.
Even when I held the plaque in my hands, I wondered to whom I should quietly return it to because it wasn't mine.
Was it?
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Undaunted and Ironclad. Those are the words on my Road ID. I've given up on being scared of life a long time ago.
I want to live it.
Maybe my times were crap. Maybe I'm not the Crawl Queen but I know that with every stroke during that swim, I carried the words that defined me. I wear the skin of an Ironman and our weapons are our mental and physical strength and our desire to better ourselves, all the while, having enough energy to get to the finish line with our heads held sky-high.
"I've got to be strong
To climb the next hill
I've got to be strong
My fate to fulfill
And from a strength
Stronger than my will
With imagination
I'll get there."
From the song, "With Imagination (I'll Get There)" by Harry Connick Jr.
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