This year, my dear friends, I am going hard. Hard on my goals ! One of them is to complete a FULL IRONMAN. A full 140 miles triathlon ! Oh yes, baby ! So I have registered for the full Ironman in Chattanooga, TN scheduled in September. And not only have I planned to complete this very long triathlon but I plan to have it done in a decent time. It will be my first one, so I know I will be very far behind the professionals. But still, a decent time. Some people say “My goal is just to finish”. But not me, I want to surprise myself on how good I will finish it. Anyway, that is one of my goals for 2022. And like for all my goals, I have a PLAN !
The plan consists of :
1. Losing weight minimum 10lbs, but the real target losing 15 lbs
2. Changing my diet so that I can fuel my body with a bunch of good stuff (with a majority of plant based food)
3. Practice : practice at low pace, practice at fast pace, practice short distances, practice long distances,.., practice and practice and practice
4. Participating to swim races, bike races, run races all along the year, so that I can feel the pressure of race day and that the competition keeps pushing me
5. Participating to shorter distances triathlons (Olympic distance and Half Iron Man Distance)
6. Increasing my sleep quantity and quality : sleeping time is a critical time for athletes to recover. Recovery is often neglected and especially sleeping. But it is so key to recover fast to practice better.
Pretty good, right ? Well, I like it. I am pumped ! I am excited ! More than the goal itself, I am excited by the process and the new man I am becoming. The journey is difficult but rewarding, is hard on me short term but so beneficial long term. I love it.
So, every day, I try to make progress on these 6 bullet points. It is not always easy. I am not always as consistent as I wished, I am not always performing as well as I wished, but day after day, week after week, because of the unstoppable law of the compound effect, I can observe my progress.
Item #4 on my list was the focus of this past Sunday. I had registered for a 55 miles bike road race with the USA Cycling Association. Pretty good training. I was ready !
Well, I was ready until …..I arrived to the race location. Only professional clubs were here. Clubs who traveled across several states to come to that competition. People who ride their bike every freaking day ! Coming to race day with minivans to bring all the material they needed for warm up, for spare wheels, for repairs,….When I saw their equipment, their level of preparation,…I knew right there that it was going to be a long day….
And it didn’t disappoint. As soon as the whistle was blown to indicate the start of the race, they were
GONE ! After 10 seconds, everyone was in front of me. I couldn’t understand. I was thinking :”Don’t they know it is a 55 miles race and that there is no way for them to keep this pace ????”. Well, I discovered through the race that they could maintain that kind of pace. So I tried, I tried very hard to catch up, to get to their pace, I pushed myself until my legs would scream their pain,…But I neve came even close to my competition. And….I finished last….Not by a short distance. By a very, very, very painful long shot.
It was embarrassing, it was disappointing, it was humiliating,…and I was so exhausted ! I gave quickly my time chip back, put the bike on the back of the car and I was gone. No need to spend more time here after such a humiliation.
After a couple of hours of shame and as I was trying to recover in my bathtub, I tried to think about the lessons I could learn from that experience. And I realized very clearly several key points which I believe are essential in any Growth, Personal Development journey.
–Lesson #1 : At the end of the day, what matters is the progress YOU make and not how good or bad you are in comparison to others. If you are making progress, you are on the right path. And guess what ? This has been my fastest bike race ever on that kind of distance. So yes, I am making progress !!! Lesson #1 : checked √.
The key point of Lesson #1 : it is you vs you. As long as you are improving continuously, then you are winning.
– Lesson #2 : Growth is outside of the comfort zone. The more you want to grow (and I do !), the more you need to be willing to jump outside of the comfort zone. You need to welcome the unknown, the fear, the embarrassment, the skills you don’t have,…because all that describes the uncomfortable zone. And that’s where the growth is. Think about children : they learn to walk, to run, to read by stepping in the uncomfortable zone. They go through a lot of failures before they can start to dominate the skill they are after. I definitely grew a lot through that experience. Lesson #2 : checked √.
-> The key point of Lesson #2 : if you start to feel the fear, the embarrassment, the lack of skill, it is probably because you are LEARNING a new skill. Seek that feeling. Recognize it as a sign that you are growing. Seek situations where you will be uncomfortable.
– Lesson #3 : if you have the ambition to increase your skills quickly, compete with the best in the world. You will learn faster ! The best in the world have mastered skills like nobody else. On Sunday, while I was observing from the back, other bike racers, I was amazed how consistent the speed of the movement of their legs was no matter if we were going downhill or uphill. They have mastered the skill of shifting gears to have a consistent effort on their legs, minimizing energy burst, and being much more conservative than I was with their energy. Great trick ! I was so happy to learn that !!! Had I not participated to that race, I would not have learned that lesson. Lesson #3 : checked √.
-> The key point of Lesson #3 : Learn from the best in the world. Look at what they are doing. They have been through a long journey to develop tricks and skills. It is a great shortcut to spend time with them and learn from them.
– Lesson #4 : You will fail, you will lose, That’s part of life. Just learn from it and move on. This article is my honest learning journey after failing on that race. It is ok to fail and lose. We all wish to be winning all the time at everything. But that’s not real life. So accept it. You will lose. You will fail. And there is great lesson from that. Lesson #4 : checked √.
-> The key point of Lesson #4 : Loosing is part of life. Failure is part of the journey. Accept it. And more importantly, learn from it.
Wow…now that I think about it, that race was a good race ;-)))))))
Your Successful Habits Coach,
Anthony
