Personal best

Well…the triathlon has come and gone. And to be honest, I don’t really know how to feel about it.
I knew the swim would be my weakest portion of the race, so I had spent a lot of time working on it over the winter, spring and summer. I was in the lake as often as I could reasonably manage, making progress through my training, so I was feeling quite confident in my ability to perform well this time around.

However! Mother Nature had a big surprise up her sleeve!! The day before the event, the lake temperature was 22.5 deg…B-E-A-Utiful!! I wasn’t going to need my wetsuit (which I wasn’t nearly as comfortable swimming in – restricted shoulder range of motion – and I had done much of my practice swimming without it) so I was super pumped! I had my transition from swim to bike planned and tweaked so I could cut time and was actually pretty excited for the day…abet a touch nervous/anxious…you know…pre-race jitters 😉

As I was setting up my station, there was an announcement that the race would now be “wetsuit mandatory.” Wait…WHAT!!? Ya. Mandatory. And guess who didn’t bring their wetsuit to the triathlon party…me…oh boy. Thank GOODNESS hubby hadn’t left for work just yet, so he was able to pop over and drop off my suit…phew…but wait…why is it mandatory?? Well…overnight, after some high winds…the lake dropped to 12 deg. 12. You heard me…12.

You can imagine the chaos that ensued. People who had been training for the event who didn’t have a wetsuit or any means to acquire one had to either drop out or switch to the duathlon (run, bike, run). Not great. Interestingly, participants who were forced to switch events and who thought they should be allowed to swim without the suit QUICKLY changed their tune as soon as the tippiest of their tippy toes reached the water…it was ICE COLD. Like, stabbing pain to the top of your feet cold. Cold, cold. They understood and accepted their reality.

I tried to acclimatize to the water before my heat, by spending a good amount of time in it, swimming a few lengths, dunking my head etc. but nothing could prepare me for the swim. I froze. Literally. About 100m in, I was fighting the urge to give up, call for help and quit. Full stop. I had already seen several swimmers do the same and there were a few who had swam over to one of the lifeguards to hold onto their boat for a rest. It was SO hard to keep going. I couldn’t keep my face in the water, was getting a bad headache from the cold and my breathing was quite rapid. My hands were getting numb which meant I couldn’t properly pull through the water and my feet felt like chunks of ice. 

I was SO determined to keep going!!…although my body was NOT happy about it LOL I kept swimming, heads up front crawl, back stroke and some heads up breast stroke. I was slooooooooooooooooow but was making steady progress. I was having some pretty hard conversations with myself as I swam. You know, “Did you really think you could do this? What will people say when they hear how bad your time is? You aren’t going to impress anyone with this performance!”…ya…sometimes I can be pretty harsh. 

BUT THEN! As I rounded the final buoy I made a VERY conscious decision – well, at least I think I was conscious…LOL This race is for NO ONE ELSE BUT ME. I am going to prove to MYSELF that today…TODAY my “personal best” isn’t the fastest time, but today I am going to BE my “personal best.” I am going to finish this. I am going to muster up whatever courage, determination, perseverance I’ve got and push through this adversity and make it to the finish line. My accomplishment today will not be measurable with any sort of clock, watch or stick, neither will it be graded by any sort of scale or standard…this is about accepting my circumstances and digging deep into my character to finish what I’ve started. Mic. Drop. LOL

The rest of the course was somewhat uneventful. Mind you, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet when I got out of the lake so I REALLY struggled to get out of my wetsuit (here’s hoping no one was watching LOL). Oh, and my hands were so cold I couldn’t change gears on my bike for a while LOL. I managed to make up some time on the bike portion and really left nothing in the tank by the end of my run (a VERY FUN sprint finish with another athlete…super hilarious!!) So, I was as pleased as I could be about my performance in bike and run portions but knew they wouldn’t make up for my slow swim.

Of course my emotions were all over the place after the race. Shear exhaustion can do that…so can an ice plunge I hear LOL. I was so FREAKIN proud of myself for finishing…even while waiting to start the race people were leaving my heat because the lake was too cold – so ya. Pat on the back for sure. But here’s the thing. I really wanted a personal best this year. Like really wanted it. I had worked hard, prepared mentally and physically to meet the demands of the course and yet, I didn’t even come close to a personal best. 

It’s been a couple of weeks since the race. Physically I’ve recovered. My quads were a bit “angry” with me for the first 4-5 days and my feet weren’t super pleased either, but overall I felt pretty good. Emotionally…I’d say I’m still recovering though. I’ve spent time thinking about what “muscles” I had to “flex” in order to choose to finish the swim, and I think they are bigger than they were before. Like lots of people, I like to do well, perform well etc. but I’m realizing more and more the importance and great value in a personal best that is more rooted in who I can BE, vs what I can DO. 

Not easy. Guessing this will take me a lifetime to fully master. 

I think this will be an important thing for me to remember and continue to work at, as I age and as my RA symptoms fluctuate. My “personal best” will need to be a much more fluid concept than a concrete benchmark. Personal Best. Today? Today I can physically do everything I need to do, but what will tomorrow bring? I won’t know until I get there, will I!?!

A wise woman once told me to remember to “consider the circumstances” of what happened before and during whatever situation you are in before being too critical of your performance. Remember to be kind to yourself, to celebrate when you show up and finish what you set out to do, or maybe even just the bit that you could, against all odds and obstacles…to the best of your abilities…at that time, in that moment.

Personal Best. You know. It’s called personal because YOU are the person who is bringing their best, not everyone else.

So…ya…
Not an easy challenge, but worth the exercise…

To many more years of pushing ourselves beyond what we (and others) think we are capable of, and the kindness to accept when we can’t.

Know that your best, even today…is enough…in fact…it’s pretty darn amazing!! In case you needed to hear that 🙂