Have you ever had a life long goal that you kept pushing off? Or you continue to justify you’re own procrastination? Year after year you’d say, “eventually I’ll do it.” You’d make other goals that were less risky. You always had the ability to conquer those smaller goals and give yourself the satisfaction of achievement, but never that full, awesome, super challenging, yet definitely rewarding big time goal. You continually push down the dissatisfaction with your own neglect of what you know you can truly do, just don’t quite have the guts to make it happen.
That’s what happened to me for the last 8 years. Back in 2010 I made a goal to do an Ironman triathlon. The person I made a pact with has gone on to do 3 Ironman races and I still hadn’t done any… until this past weekend.
August 19, 2018 will forever go down as a momentous day in the history of my life. It is the day that I completed my first Ironman in Mont Tremblant, Canada. But more importantly it was a day that I acknowledged to myself, I can do what I say, I can follow through, and I can reach deep inside my soul and come out on top!
Race day was incredible! A 2.4 mile (3.8km) swim, a 112 mile (180km) bike ride, and a 26.2 mile (42.2km) run, yes, all in one day! While I’ve ridden that distance in the past and run marathons before, I’d never swam more than 2 miles and definitely never came close to putting all 3 of those events together in one day.
I’m an Endurance athlete, so I know how to suffer. But unlike any other sporting event, I knew this race was going to take a whole lot of suffering. What I didn’t quite realize was how great the payoff would be. The swim wasn’t bad at all, it took me an hour and twelve minutes. After a quick transition, I started the bike ride. My left quad began to give signals of cramping which forced me to go a little easy on the hills. I think that was destiny in action because I needed the natural governor to save some energy for what would turn out to be the most painful marathon I’ve ever run. After just under 6 hours on the bike, I started heading out on the run.
Just out of the transition area was thousands of cheering fans including my family. They wore a sight for sore legs, that’s for sure! My wife, our cute toddler, and the rest of the family were screaming their heads off for me. I stopped for a kiss from my wife, a high five from my kiddo, and a break for my legs.
They cheered me on to the run which was 2 loops of a 21k out and back course that was relatively flat. I was shooting for 4 hours or faster on my marathon, but after about 28km the pain became too great. Every step was as though someone was hitting my quads with a hammer, I just couldn’t sustain the pace and had to slow down.
In longer events like these, basic brain functions become difficult. Simple mathematics became challenging and while I thought I needed to run about 10k every hour, I needed to go 10.5km per hour. It might not seem like a lot, but when you’ve been out there in the heat, suffering for over 10 hours simple addition isn’t always easy and those extra 2k got me to the finish line with a 4:09 marathon, still incredibly respectable.
My overall time at my first Ironman was 11 hours and 33 minutes. In my athletic career, there has been no greater satisfaction than coming down the finishing straight, crossing that finishing line, and hearing the iconic voice of Ironman, Mike Reilly say, “Ted McDonald, YOU ARE AN IRONMAN!!!” I was holding back tears and when I go to the finish line, so I decided to dance!
To me, that’s what life is made up of, times of joy, times of pain, and in the end we’re stronger. So, if there is something you’ve been telling yourself that you want to do, don’t wait. Go do it now! Sign up for the race, start the business, put down the dessert, whatever it is for you, find that voice inside that says you CAN do it! Find me if you need some help, I’m always happy to lead you there!
Originally published on the author’s website.