Maybe you’re curious about triathlon. Maybe you have friends who race, but you don’t feel athletic enough to race with them. Maybe you just want a big scary goal to shake up your comfort zone. Whatever your reason for wanting to tri, we all have reasons for why we haven’t started yet. It took a lot of self-prodding for me to commit to tri. In fact, I had this deal with myself for years- I would do a triathlon by the time I was 30. I said this at the age of 23. Why did I give myself a 6 year cushion?

Because I was chicken-shit.

It was something I said I wanted. Every year I would say, I’m going to do a triathlon. But I never took any action.

I couldn’t name the things that were holding me back. Now I can.

The number one thing holding me back was swimming. I could float, I could doggie paddle, but I wasn’t a swimmer. I knew I’d need to improve that before I started training. But I put off even working on my swimming for SIX YEARS!!! (Imagine how strong of a swimmer I would be now if I had starting swimming then!)

In the end, I only needed 7 months. I ventured into the pool in September and I was terrible. I could barely make it from one side of the pool to the other and spent more time hanging on the side catching my breath than actually swimming. But I set a goal to swim 10 laps, and when I was done I felt elated. I swam twice a week, adding a little more distance each time. 6 weeks later I swam a mile, three times further than I’d need to swim in my race. So I put my money down and entered my first triathlon, pulled a free 8 week training plan off the internet, and completed my first race in March.

So how did I finally overcome my roadblock? I made a decision to do it. I set a deadline. And I created accountability by handing over the money to register and telling my friends and family about my goal. Once I was committed, I had to do it. And thank goodness I did, because triathlon changed my life.

Why haven’t you started yet? I want to hear your reason for not doing your first triathlon so that we can overcome it together. Comment below or take this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5V9CGW7