Be Brave

My initial thoughts of starting a blog were back in the winter of 2012. Having made the commitment to sign up for Ironman Louisville in August 2012, I was embarking on a huge journey. It was incredible scary, and perhaps a little foolish. At that point I had over 15 marathons, 13-15 half marathons and numerous 10k’s and 5k’s under my belt, but only ONE triathlon. And that one triathlon was an “indoor” triathlon. Seriously, what was I thinking?

Swim portion of my triathlon EVER-McConnell Indoor Tri, November 2011

But my thought was to start a blog to journal about my process and the progression of my training. I never went through with it….and I definitely know why. I was SCARED to death to put my words out there. I was full of fear….fear that nobody would care about another blog in the world, fear that I’d sound ridiculous...but the ultimate fear was that I would FAIL. I was terrified to tell the world about my Ironman journey out of a deeply held insecure fear that I wouldn't be able to “handle” the immensity of an Ironman triathlon and I’d fail. Then, in my mind, my entire journey would be laughable.  I remember that during the initial training period I never even told others at my workplace what I was doing….the fear of failure was too high.

And on top of that there were the questions that I didn't want to answer. “Why in the world would you want to do that? How much are you paying for this torturous day? Isn't that kind of selfish? Why? Won’t you really hurt yourself? What are you trying to prove? You've only done ONE triathlon? What were you thinking when you signed up for THE ultimate triathlon?”

Most of these questions were ones that circumnavigated around my head through the months but my deep seeded fear was that everyone else was thinking the same thing. And truthfully I’m sure that some of them were. I’m certain that many people (including myself at times) thought I was crazy.

In the end, I poured myself into that training year and finished 2012 Ironman Louisville. It was a HUGE accomplishment for me and one of which I’m very proud.

Finish line-IMKY 2012

The point of re-hashing all of this is to finally put “out there” that I’m taking a stand against my fears. This year, I”m not only going to be training for my second Ironman distance triathlon….Ironman Arizona (November 16, 2014), but I'm making a commitment to face my fears and challenge my demons head-on. And there are many of them….my fears are both small and large: fears of being financially broke, fears of being rejected, fears of being alone, fears of being forgotten, fears of failure (in anything...sports, life, career, etc)......so you get the point. There’s a lot. I won’t bore you with the details.

So I’m slowly discovering that living a fear based life pretty much sucks. And it’s not helping me be happy or thrive. In fact it’s holding me back. My fears are real and they are strong.  They've held me back from taking numerous chances and risks because I didn't know the outcome beforehand. They've kept me in miserable places because I wasn't willing to take a chance. Professionally, as an eating disorder clinical therapist, I’m asking my clients to trust me and take chances and face their fears literally everyday. If I”m not able to ask the same of myself, then I’ve got bigger problems.

So starting today, April 1, 2014, I’m taking a small step towards one of my fears. My 34th birthday is later this month and I figured it was a good time to start. I’m going to begin writing that blog I never began over 2 years ago. I’m going to blog about whatever I desire, be it about the Ironman or not…..and I’m going to put it out there and try (really hard!) not to fear how it could be received, if at all.  And truthfully this might not inspire anyone or be read by anyone (besides my mom), and that’s ok. It’s time to be brave.