I didn’t have this kind of gear when I started!
So…yesterday I shared with you the things that led up to my doing an IronMan.
The Grand Canyon experience led to my doing CrossFit, and while doing CrossFit, I saw some of my friends getting ready for and competing in IronMan races.
My Spirit knew that it was something I got to do, but my mind kept creating reasons why not. I was scared shitless.
I actually resisted committing to it for about a month.
I told myself, “I don’t have a bike. My knees are bad, and I am too old and heavy.” The list of excuses was long…but those excuses were not stronger than my will to do something really big for myself.
At the end of that month of indecision, I finally put down cash on the event, not fully unaware of what was up the road for me in terms of preparation.
I started training on a mountain bike that was over 15 years old, and I had no gear, whatsoever. There’s a lesson in this, and I’ll get to it, later.
Simply Preparing For The IronMan Was Amazing
I did a LOT of different things as I trained my body to do hard stuff!
It was one of the most amazing journeys of my life.
I’ve had breakthrough after breakthrough over the past year.
There have been so many of them that I could not even share them if I wanted to do so.
They are forever engrained on my heart and in my life…
…and people get to experience the results of those breakthroughs in their interactions with me as friends/loved ones or as clients.
It’s neat looking at who I was and who I am, now.
I Started Preparing For The IronMan With Sprint Lengths
A “sprint length” is a half-mile swim, a 12-mile bike ride, and a 3-mile run.
As my body adjusted to the increased lengths of exercise, I moved up to the next lengths. In order, they are Sprint, Olympic, Half IronMan, and Full IronMan. If you want to see what those lengths are, click here.
As I prepared, I healed childhood trauma that I didn’t even know was still in my body.
One challenging part of my training was swimming. Learning to control my breathing and not get triggered by “mob swimming” was interesting, to say the least.
When you have people swimming all around you, it can feel very intense. There is a tendency to panic…so I got to deal with that, and I was grateful for the chance to heal.
Childhood trauma affects other areas of our lives, so I was very appreciative that I had pushed myself into such an unfamiliar environment and way of being.
Without that experience, I may have never known an area that desired healing and love. I also might have never known about other ways in which I was being held back in life by childhood trauma.
It is quite possible that I would not have been triggered in any, other way.
I Am At A Place In Life Where I Am “Forest Gumping” My Way To The Best Version Of Myself
When is the last time you worked hard to achieve something well outside your comfort zone?
Forest Gump didn’t know that he could not accomplish all the things that he did.
He didn’t know he needed special shoes to run well. He just ran.
He became a shrimp tycoon, a champion ping pong player, and a Vietnam Veteran…all because he didn’t know he could not do those things.
See…most of us accomplish maybe one, big thing in life, and we tell stories about that one thing for the rest of our lives.
Well, I don’t desire to do that.
I want to do as much as I can for as long as I can.
Now, I understand that “Forest Gump” is just a movie, but the point, for me, is that one person actually COULD do all of those things if they had his kind of mindset!
There is no need to settle for a half-assed life. We all have the ability to go from one great thing to the next.
Why not do that?
Why not go from one epic experience to the next and see how much liberation we can gain from those experiences?
That’s what I did…and you can do it, too, if you choose.
With Each Race I Competed In As Preparation For The IronMan, I Learned Something New About My Body And About Life
A year ago, I could never have done this!
In the first preparatory race, the ride and run were both easy, and I had massive breakthroughs during the swim.
In my second preparatory race, the swim kicked my ass, again, and the run kicked my ass, too because there was a longer distance.
I competed in the St. George Half-IronMan, which is one of the hardest Half IronMans in the world. But I learned a ton from it about food and water intake while competing.
I also tightened all my intercostal muscles and thought I was having a heart attack.
It was intense, but I finished with no timing issues, whatsoever.
By the time I got to the full IronMan, I was in better condition than I had ever been in my life, and I cannot wait to tell you that story.
Earlier, I mentioned starting without all the gear I needed to really prepare well for the IronMan, and I really want to tell you all about that in my next article.
It’s an incredible insight that I didn’t gain until nearly the end of this, whole process.
I talk about some of this stuff in my private Facebook group, called Limitless Legion. You are free to join us in there by clicking right here.
If, on the other hand, you are ready to start having peak life experiences like I do, you can begin your adventure by clicking here.
See you in the next article!
