The Lowdown
THE PICTURES WE TAKE IN THE
ALBUM OF LIFE By Jeff Matlow
Life is a series of seconds. It’s a clock ticking. Ticking. Ticking. One second leads to another, marching into minutes, merging into hours, days, months, years, a lifetime. And though most of our seconds tick away into the missing memories of yesteryear, there are certain seconds in the decades of life that have such tremendous impact, they virtually freeze time. As of right this very moment, I’ve lived for 1,395,804,180 seconds. I want to tell you about two of them.
I started running in 1979. I started biking in 1983. I started swimming in 1988. Suddenly I was on a trajectory that led me to 1992 in Pasadena, Calif. I had seen triathlon on TV; I read the articles in Sports Illustrated; I got the bug. So I decided to do my first triathlon. It wasn’t the decision that changed me.
Truth be told, I have no recollection of making the decision to race. It wasn’t even racing that changed me. In reality, I don’t even remember the majority of the race. What I do remember is that I had absolutely, positively no clue what I was doing at my first triathlon. I was terrifyingly nervous that I’d do it all wrong. So wearing my embarrassingly slim Speedo (a few years after it was out of style) and carrying my plastic transition bucket (which may never have been in style in the first place), I ambled hesitantly into this new adventure. It’s an interesting thing about your first triathlon — it’s not the beginning that you remember. The beginning of your first triathlon is usually just a bundle of nerves screaming so loudly they drown out the actual experience. But the end? It is the end of your first triathlon that is like few other experiences in life.
112 USA TRIATHLON FALL 2011
I’d done races before. Many of them. But that one second when your foot crosses the finish line of your first triathlon is completely different than any other second of any other type of race. For me, it was life-changing. In just one second my eyes were open to the glimpse of possibility. I understood effort and sacrifice. I understood dedication and commitment. I understood what it takes to live your dreams. I suddenly understood everything that all the non-triathletes of the world may never comprehend. In one second, I was no longer just a regular guy — I became a triathlete and set myself on a new course for growth and pursuit. And then it took 14 more years to get to the next moment.
It was July 2006 in Lake Placid, New York. For 14 years the desire to do an Ironman — or, rather, the fear of doing an Ironman — kept gnawing at me. So more than a decade after crossing the finish line of my first multisport race, I signed up for my first Ironman.
Ironman training is grueling in a weirdly normal sort of way. The thought of training for over 20 hours per week is daunting. But when you actually do it, when the 5 hours of weekly training turns to 8, then 12, then 18; when the 3-hour ride turns to 5, then to 7; when the 9-mile run becomes 12 and 17; when all of a sudden the extraordinary becomes part of the ordinary, that is what Ironman training is about.
Yet even though you are prepared, even though you know without a shadow of a doubt that you could go the distance, even though you are excited, the start of that Ironman is unnerving.
This is the interesting thing about your first Ironman race — it’s the beginning that you remember. It’s not the countdown before the start. It’s not even the sound of the gun. It’s the single split second when the starter is flexing his finger on the trigger. It’s the micro second before that gun goes off. It is the wrinkle in time where all your dreams and all your fears suddenly collide. Life, as you knew it, freezes.
In one second, I was just a regular schmo peeing in a wetsuit while calmly treading water, and in the next second I was an Ironman racer. It’s surreal. And then the second passes and you move boldly forward into your future. But that’s the thing about the seconds of our lives. Though the clock keeps ticking and time keeps moving, those single seconds that we harness, stick with us. They become the pictures we take in the album of life. And throughout time we can flip through that album and remind ourselves of the progress and growth we’ve experienced; of the pride and accomplishment that we harness in one single second.
Jeff Matlow doesn’t wear a watch. He’s here:
jeffruns@imATHLETE.com – or –
www.twitter.com/IAmAthlete
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