Pure Joy
With a few exceptions, none of us grew up saying, “I want to be a triathlete when I grow up.” Like me, you may not have grown up wanting to do any of the three disciplines. Sure, I liked to swim, I liked to ride my bike, but I hated running. Then a few years ago the strangest thing happened: I had the urge to go for a run. I set a modest goal...to try to go one mile without stopping. I thought this strange feeling would only last a day or two but I was wrong. Running became my escape. Whenever I was stressed, or mad, or sad, or even just bored, I would go for a run. To me, running is a cure-all.
It was through a running injury that I found triathlon. A stress fracture just above my ankle sidelined my running for two months. To rehab I was allowed to swim, and bike. I found that by doing the other two sports not only did I not lose any running fitness but it actually improved. The cross training hugely benefitted my running and became a staple of my training program. That’s how I found triathlon. I was doing a lot of swimming, a lot of biking, and a lot of running so I figured why not give this triathlon thing a try. 
Though I’m very passionate about triathlon, swimming and biking still seem like work to me. That’s not to say I don’t love doing each of them, they just don’t come as naturally to me as running. I’m constantly refining my technique in search of an extra gear on the bike, or a few seconds less per hundred yards in the pool. Similarly when I talk to swimmers at masters practice, or my fellow riders at a group ride, they all seem to have the same sentiment about running. I love to hear riders talk about epic rides that seem to fly by, or swimmers talk about 10,000 yard workouts that seem like a breeze. To me, no swim workout is a breeze, and no ride seems to fly by.
This winter I’ve been nursing another leg injury that has put my running on the shelf. I’ve dedicated this pre season to improving both on the bike and in the pool and have had a lot of fun seeing the results. I just recently started back running again and now focusing on shorter and consistent runs to build back up. My first real run was a couple weeks ago. Just like when I started running, my goals right now are modest. Even though I was on the treadmill during a snow storm it was one of the most fun runs I’ve ever done. I was just cruising along listening to the rhythm of my feet underneath me. I felt a joy that I haven’t felt in a long time. I’m sure pure swimmers feel a similar joy when they get back in the pool after a long layoff. Bikers the same when they can get back outdoors after a winter locked on the trainer.
As triathletes we all have that one sport we hold near and dear to our hearts. For me that’s running. I know some if not most people share my passion for running, but whatever you’re cure-all sport is, make sure to take some time to enjoy it. Too often we get wrapped in the sometimes endless training cycle and forget why we first started doing multisport. It’s not until we are unable to do our favorite discipline that we realize just how much we miss it, and feel the pure joy to either swim, bike, or run just for fun.
-Athlete Ian
Posted by on 02/25 at 09:09 PM
Athlete Ian's Journey to Ironman 2010 •
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