Yesterday, my brother in law completed the Ironman. Sorry if that song by Ozzy Osbourne is in your head. It’s in mine every time I see that word. I’m a child of the 80s, what can I say?
Anyway, this triathlon consists of a 2.4 mile swim (it took my brother in law almost 2 hours to do that) then a 112 mile bike race followed by a marathon (26.2 mile run). It took him 14 hours, but he did it all. Not bad for a first timer! Of course, he trained ruthlessly for months.
While I wasn’t able to be there to cheer him on at the finish, I was able to watch it live via the internet. Yet another reason to love technology.
I sat here in Sacramento watching these people cross the finish line in Utah. One guy actually kissed the posts. Lots of people would put their hands on their heads at the finish…like they couldn’t believe they’d done it.
It makes me think about how if you have a goal, even a seemingly crazy one, you can accomplish it if you believe you can. It helps to have a supportive network around you. My sister was posting updates on Facebook throughout the day. Friends who couldn’t be there sent their positive vibes of support out into the interwebs and I know they made it back to my brother in law through some ethereal plane.
The real trick is to find the motivation to start reaching that goal and then to be able to plow through the doubts and handle any setbacks that greet you along the way. Also, even if my brother in law hadn’t finished the race, I still would have congratulated him on his attempt.
Because when it comes right down to it, the real goal is just to try to do something. Get out of your rut, get out of your funk and do something. Stop complaining. Set your mind to something positive. It’s easy to focus on the negative. Believe me, I know. It’s a bad habit. Just look at what you can do if (to paraphrase Joe Dirt) you don’t have no in your heart.