Triathlon Race Day Quotes

The happiest thing for me about this day’s race was that I was able, on a personal level, to truly enjoy the event. The overall time I posted wasn’t anything to brag about, and I made a lot of little mistakes along the way. But I did give it my best, and I felt a nice, tangible afterglow. I also think I’ve improved in a lot of areas since the previous race, which is an important point to consider. In a triathlon the transition from one event to the next is difficult, and experience counts for everything. Through experience you learn how to compensate for your physical shortcomings. To put it another way, learning from experience is what makes the triathlon so much fun. Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren’t involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It’s precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive — or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself. If things go well, that is.

Act Like a Champion YOU'RE A CHAMPION. Here's proof: You're alive. You were conceived in the womb of your mother as a result of the most exhausting, gruesome race in the universe. There were 180 million human sperms running, swimming, cycling towards one solitary egg waiting in the fallopian tube of the female body. It was a triathlon of epic proportions where there would be only one champion. And you won. You came out the champion. You defeated 180 million competitors. I repeat: You're already a champion. So act like one. God created you for a sacred mission. So live life every day with purpose and passion.

While most athletes were deep into their pre-race rituals and getting psyched up for the longest day of their racing lives, we buzzed overhead in a C-130, jumped from 1,500 feet, and parachuted into the water, where we were scooped up by a Zodiac and motored to shore just four minutes before the gun. That was barely enough time for a blast of energy gel, a swig of water, and to change into our Navy SEAL triathlon suits.