FAILING

I’m getting back to writing my weekly fitness column for TheFatherLife.com – today’s post “Failing” will run over there soon. This will be my last post until early next week. I have a triathlon on Sunday and I’m headed into “game mode.” Wish me luck, and hope y’all have a great weekend!

When you get good at something you start to make it look easy. But that doesn’t mean it is easy. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean the journey to get to that point was easy.

I’ve been triathlon training on a regular basis for about 18 months now. Things are starting to feel much easier. Long runs. Long swims, etc. I’ve heard folks say, “Man, you made that look easy.” Thanks.

I’m flattered to hear that, but the critical flipside is that it hasn’t always been easy. There’s been a lot of failure. A lot of sucky runs. A lot of days when I gave my all and still had a horrible, pathetic training session. All 15 minutes of it.

Guess what, guys? That’s par for the course. If you didn’t think there’d be some failing involved in getting back into shape than you really didn’t think it through.

Here’s the truth. Getting back in shape sucks. It’s hard. It’s not sexy. There seems to be this unspoken belief that getting back in shape should be fun and sexy! After all, that’s how the infomercials make it seem, right? Although you probably picture yourself running – gliding down the road banging out fast, effortless, olympic-pace-material miles… the reality is that when you’re just starting out and you’re obese and barely making it down the road and barely able to run 1 mile at a time? It just sucks. Don’t sugarcoat it. You and I both know that it sucks.

And that’s fine. Nothing worth doing is easy. If it was than everyone would be doing it. If it was easy than the majority of the US population wouldn’t be overweight or obese. (Yes, the majority.)

So indulge me and allow me to give you my #1 failure story. Hopefully it’ll help you feel better about your own misery and inspire you to keep plugging away.

In 2010 I thought I was in tolerable shape. I was light years better than I’d been a year before that (although from where I stand now I wasn’t in amazing shape). I had always wanted to get into endurance mountain biking and, heck, I’d gone on long bike rides before… so I entered a 24 hour mountain bike race. Solo division. I pre-rode the course. I knew what I was getting myself into. What’s the worst that could happen?

Well, failing, for one. Excruciating pain, for another. Humid heat and lack of the several years of training I probably needed to have under my belt = I made it about 9 hours and than my muscles stopped working. All of them. Dehydrated, cramped and impossibly behind on electrolyte intake I threw in the towel. I had no other choice given that simply sitting down back at my campsite threw my body into painful cramps.

That was hard for me. A big blow to the ego. Egos heal. Since then I’ve learned much more about endurance racing nutrition, training, etc. I’m [hopefully] a tad more humble. I could have said never again. But I didn’t. I’ve kept at it. And back in July of this year – almost exactly a year to the day after my epic failure –  I banged out a 112 mile, one day mountain bike ride, solo. Those are the moments that failure starts finding its context. And things start feeling easier.

Failing. It’s kinda like Charlie Sheen’s “Winning” only more realistic. You can’t avoid it. But keep pushing, it’ll get easier. I promise.