A New Years Story:

Last year, I posted a photo of myself in an IronMan CA shirt and announced my plan to go for it. Among the many problems with this was that I couldn’t swim freestyle (yes, I’d swam the A. C. Half’s 1.2 mi. breastroke-ish—trust me the pack of other torpedo shaped athletes LOVED it).

Enter @annaeilinsfeld and her high EQ sit on the bottom of the pool, dive for this ten pound brick repeatedly—coaching. It worked. Anna somehow taught me to swim with my actual face in the actual water (no matter what my Apple Watch has to say about my form). THANK YOU, Anna.

Enter coach @gregoryjclose who very calmly, at our first meeting, informed me that the bike I’d been speeding around NYC on had no breaks. Who very supportively said you can definitely do the California Ironman.

But over the summer I was given the chance to work on something I’d dreamed about for years. An around-the-clock kind of situation. I did keep training. Until one day, after writing for hours and swimming an hour I exhaustedly headed out for a bike ride. And at the very bottom of the VERY, very tall hill I was living on—my tire popped very nearly sending me flying into traffic.

And even then, as I was pushing the bike back up the hill, sliding down in my bike shoes, I was like: “That’s okay. I will start again tomorrow.”

And I probably would have. Luckily at that exact moment I was listening to @cherylstrayed and @glennondoyle talk about how sometimes giving up IS a victory. And, I thought: oh, wait…

I deferred my Ironman race that day. Signed up instead for the Utah 70.3 this coming May—a compromise. (Although Greg Close did also kindly say, “I’m sorry—which race?” Apparently, Utah has hills.)

But for sure when I look back on 2022, it isn’t as the year I quit the Ironman. It’s as the year, maybe, I really learned how to swim. As for 2023, my wish is this:

To accept failure as a necessary part of every worthy thing. To know that today’s defeat is inevitably tomorrow’s wisdom. And to remember that true courage lies in the willingness to try again, whatever that really means.

Happy New Year 💗

(P.S. See you in 2023, California IronMan)

#newyearseve #newyear #author

(at Brooklyn, New York)
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