3 lessons learnt from finishing my second triathlon

Embrace your achievements

I used to have a very bad habit: as soon as I reached one of my goals I just kept looking for the next one. Maybe you know that feeling in business too. But this time it was different. Although the race was super tough and demanding I could enjoy it - at least parts of it ;) But it was not just the race I enjoyed I also liked the time after finishing it. Maybe it helped that I already decided to reduce my long distance sport activities (no more marathons, no full Ironman, no more Ironman 70.3) and therefore this triathlon was the last one. I never felt so relaxed and truly happy after a race. There are definitely some perks in getting older :-)

The road to resilience

At the age of 5 I started doing sports very regularly. Since then I never stopped doing it at least a little bit. The process of setting goals and defining the process to reach even unthinkable targets has been one of my key assets for my career. Another quality I got reminded of is resilience. Last weekend I started into the race with a very poor swimming performance, followed by a bike ride which seemed to be almost over after 30 kilometres. My legs already hurt heavily and one guy after the other passed me (that fast that it almost felt like that they had electric support - which of course they did not!). Nothing would have been easier than quitting. I could already see and taste my cold beer back at home. But I kept pushing and after 10 more kilometres the race changed completely. I finally found my rhythm and even finished the half marathon in under 2 hours.

Goal vs. Process

I recently told a friend that I love doing things for the first time and than loose any interest of doing it again. While doing some research I found a great TED talk with the title “Goal Setting: Outcome Goals vs Process Goals”. During my triathlon training I was struggling a lot and I was reflecting why it was that hard this time. Now I am aware that a big part was the fact that it was my second one. To ride the bike 5 minutes faster or swim 3 minutes less did not motivate me at all. Instead I was thinking about the next challenge which really made me click. With one “little” challenge I already started: testing all sport types of my Urban Sports Club membership until end of the year. And yes, that includes also Pole Dance ;)