How Ironman changed my life [Part 2] - The ego wants it

Having found my next place of rest for some days after a long few days of cycling I find myself with some time to continue my story. In case you missed part one and are interested, you can find it by clicking on the following link : https://www.discoveringthepoint.com/post/how-ironman-changed-my-life-part-1-wanting-the-glory-without-the-sacrifice

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Once the relationship had ended in 2015, due to the shadowing of my previous Ironman accomplishment, I felt it necessary to apply for the race again. Same race, same location, same challenge. In a sense it became an opportunity to "reboot" the Ironman situation in my life. Yet once again it was to feed my ego and say "I've done it"

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My physical state had regressed in the one year off due to the fact, that I had returned to the old destructive habits.

I was somewhat more prepared for what was to come.

The pre-training picture

There was a big improvement on the training consistency when compared to the previous attemp, but I was still slacking behind. If I had an hour run, I would do 50minutes. Once again Will was very patient with my situation, but he would get angry at me. I wanted it more than before. I wanted to cross that finish line in a way I could be proud of, but it was still hard to make the full sacrifice. My goal was the finish line. I was just working towards the glory at the finish.

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It was this year when I was tested by "life" to see if I had learnt a lesson from my previous experience.

I found myself involved with a girl who lived in London. She visited me sometimes, and I visited her sometimes.

This undoubtedly put a few dents in the consistency of my training in the early months of the training program, but I managed fit a few training sessions around this girl situation which I became absorbed by. About 3 months into the training program with 3 months to go, I had to stop going to London to visit this girl, which she didn't take very well and that caused me some distress because I was pretty smitten over this girl but the ego wanted the glory of the finish line.

I passed the "test". I managed to sacrifice something big in order to try and achieve my goal.

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So the training continued, the alone swimming, cycling and running continued, but the difference was this time it was not escaping from those turbulent thoughts, and I had to face them. It was not easy. I can still clearly remember moments out on the bicycle on a Sunday morning where I would feel totally breathless and fight back from breaking into tears while cycling. A a sense of overwhelming despair and loneliness. -Processing the loss of my long term relationship which ended in 2015. -Processing the physical pain of enduring the training and waking up early. -Processing the sense of lack of individual identity. -Processing the sacrifice of having to push away a beautiful girl who was giving me attention (which I feared would never happen again) -Processing the pain of feeling a lack of family as I had not forgiven them for where I believed I was wronged in the past

It was not easy facing my inner demons. But it was necessary.

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Even though I had a lot of pain associated with my parents at the time, selfishly, I needed a support team and asked them to join on my trip to Kalmar. They instantly said yes. So logistically that was taken care of, yet I was very concerned about the stress that would come with them tagging along.

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Race day came and the last 3 months of training went considerably better than those of 2014. My parents were very patient with my temperament and were a good support team.

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It was a race of races. To quote Will, "I raced a perfect race". It's now 3 years later and I can still re-feel the emotions of that race. Particularly those which I felt during the run. My legs were on fire, I hadn't eaten enough, I was emotionally crashing. Yet the ego wanted to get there. I wanted to walk but I refused to give in. I had finally learnt how to converse with myself. "No! You don't stop when you're tired! You stop when you finish" "Come on man, almost there, you got this" "Sh*t, I was slower on the bike than planned, if I want to achieve my predicted time I can't afford to walk these last 3 nutrition stations" "Look how far you've come" "Hold on, deal with the pain later" "You know greater pain than this, this is nothing. Deal with it later. Just get there"

"You know greater pain than this, this is nothing. Just deal with it later"

The red carpet signifying the finish line approached. A big surge of energy came into me. “Almost there”. Somehow I sprinted those final 100m.

"You did this"

'You beat yourself Sam, you pushed yourself further than you thought possible. You accepted the pain you had to endure to get here. You did this"

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Then something happened. Something I had needed for at least 2 years. I broke down. My legs gave in. I couldn't stand anymore. I couldn't breathe. My legs gave way. I was disoriented. I didn't need to be strong anymore. I allowed myself to slowly fall to the floor and sit down and cried. I cried on the floor uncontrollably for about 4 minutes like a baby. I was able to release all my pain.

that moment was the start to an extremely important changing point in my life.

With those tears and breakdown, I was able to start letting go of the person I used to be. I understood that this feeling of success was possible because of the suffering and the pain I endured. Anything worth having requires sacrifice and pain. It is necessary or else it is meaningless.

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From that point on my whole perspective of life changed which brought me to 2017 with an entirely new mindset. Part 3- "I don't have to, I get to" to come out soon