Triathlon – Part 1

Several weeks ago I actually dialed a phone number and used my credit card to sign up for a triathlon – On Purpose! – Just for the experience. Swim, then bike, then run! As I rolled up my sleeve and revealed my lily-white arm, the event official used a permanent marker to identify me in bold as number 236. This was my first attempt at a triathlon.

The first event was the swim. I arrived with three of my grown children who unanimously sent me to the head of the long line of swimmers to beg my way to an early entrance into the pool. “I’m not going to be very fast,” I explained to the youthful group in black Speedos, goggles, and swim caps. “Can I stand here so I can get into the pool and out again before this whole thing is over?” I think my flowered suit gave my request a lot of credibility. “Sure!” they said.

I watched as swimmer after swimmer entered and exited the pool. I can swim, but I’m not what you would call “a swimmer.” I’m not fond of putting my head into the water, and my general mode of operation is the breaststroke. Sixteen lengths of the breaststroke was exactly how I planned to accomplish the first part of the challenge. I knew my friends in line and my children further back in line were going to speed through the water like torpedoes. I questioned the group, “You can swim however you want, right?” “Absolutely!” they reassured me.

Just then a swimmer caught my attention. In the closest lane to me was gentleman who gave me courage to just be myself and try with everything I had. This older fellow was not doing a sleek forward crawl or the breaststroke. He was doing the elementary backstroke, back and forth, lap after lap.

The first lesson I learned during my triathlon experience was that the number one qualifier is the willingness to try. To “try” is “to make an effort to do something hard to endure.” The most important thing I had to do to get from one end of this experience to the other was to make an effort.

As I jumped into my lane, head up, nose out of the water, a thought came to me that made me smile. Think of this as a Try-athlon Nannette!

That’s when I suspected that God was going to teach me some important things that spring day in April, not just about swimming, biking, and running, but about making it from one end to the other in the Try-athlon we call Life. I decided to pay attention.

By Nannette W.
Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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