One of the things that took a while to sink in for me was that no matter how many people are around and no matter how supportive they are, when the horn goes off and a triathlon begins, you are on your own. If your mental game is not right all the cheering in the world won’t be enough. I go over this in my mind often because once I began to swim I started hearing all the negative things possible in my head. I lost focus on my swimming and concentrated on how far in the distance my exit point was. As I was leaving the water I began to be uptight because I had struggled so on my bike the month before. The ride was tough for me without a doubt but when it was done I realized that I had trained fairly well. Since I don’t run the walk was the most enjoyable part of the whole thing. I practiced in my head saying that I was through with triathlons all the way to the finish line. I told my friends that I was never doing it again and that I was going to sell my bike the next day.

Wow! I can carry on. The fact is I had the wrong mindset through the  entire thing. My planned mantra went out the window or in this case floated out to sea within two minutes of the start. After that I was fighting myself for three hours.

So I have about ten months to get it together. Planning for a better mindset next year!

My kid, his kids and his mother-in-law. They drove 4 hours to cheer me on